


And All the Times After

by Mnemosyne_Elegy



Series: The Third Time and All the Times After [2]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-20 01:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnemosyne_Elegy/pseuds/Mnemosyne_Elegy
Summary: Side stories to "The Third Time". Because although Gray was still a little broken at the edges and there would always be more times for grieving, Natsu had promised that he would always be there so that they could figure things out together.





	1. The Other Nighttime Chat

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is going to include two (now three!) side stories to "The Third Time". I put them in an entirely separate piece because they don't really fit with the original stories the same way. I mean, they definitely connect and they go together, but they have a slightly different vibe and I like how the other two complement each other on their own. I didn't want to add anything else to that mix.

Gray had to admit that this scheme to grab a bunch of jobs and run around the countryside for a few weeks was actually turning out to be a pretty good idea. He was no longer quite sure why he had proposed it in the first place though. The original intention had been to do something for Natsu's benefit, because Gray wasn't stupid and he had noticed how worried his friend had been. And Natsu was dead set on bothering Gray until he felt like he had done something to genuinely help the situation anyway. But Gray was starting to suspect that part of the reason he had wanted to go on this road trip with Natsu was purely selfish.

The past month and a half had been really hard for him with all the reminders of what had happened to his parents and Ur, and the reminders of what had almost happened to Natsu and the rest of his Fairy Tail friends. Natsu thought that the real issue was the nightmares, but they weren't even the start of the problem. If anything, they were just a side effect. The problem was just that Gray was sad. He felt depressed and guilty and overwhelmed by all those terrible things that he had never quite gotten over no matter how much time had passed.

And although he didn't like to admit it, being with Natsu helped that. Part of it was just that the dragon slayer was always so upbeat and silly that it was hard to stay in a bad mood around him, and all the jobs had kept Gray busy enough that he didn't have as much time to brood. The other part was that Natsu had been his best friend for a long time, and had been the one who had followed him on a job just to try snapping him out of his depressive haze. And it had worked, to an extent, because Natsu had been the only person to actually get through to Gray despite the fact that several people had made intermittent attempts in the month since Galuna. Gray had to give him credit for that.

Perhaps even more impressive was that Natsu had managed to  _keep_ him out of his introspective depression, for the most part. After that one job that Natsu had tagged along on, the two mages had gone back to the guild and cheerfully argued until they agreed on five jobs they would take for their little trip. Then they had dodged all of Erza's warnings and hopeful looks—honestly, why did she still bother? Didn't she realize that they were damn good friends by now, fighting or not?—and hurried out the door just as soon as they had told everyone goodbye, explained to Lucy why they absolutely could not help her make her rent payment this month no matter how persuasive she thought she was, and convinced Happy and Erza that it was their job to help Lucy with her rent instead.

After that, they traveled around by train—thankfully the potion Gray had picked up seemed to help a little, even if it couldn't get rid of Natsu's motion sickness completely—and proceeded to terrorize the countryside. Well, they had actually kept the terrorizing to a minimum, aside from the dark guilds and various villainous characters they had run into on their jobs. The unnaturally good behavior was mostly thanks to Gray keeping Natsu in line.

Not that Natsu made it easy. The fire-breathing idiot had spent half of the previous day whining about how he wanted burn down the mayor's mansion. Gray was tempted to agree since this mayor was arrogant and rude, flat-out lied about how powerful the dark guild harassing his town was in the job request, and had withheld part of the mages' reward because they had damaged some of the town buildings. Which was only because the dark guild had been twice as big as Natsu and Gray had been led to believe, making some damage inevitable. But the two friends had been on their best behavior up to this point so as to not attract the wrath of Erza or the Council, and Gray didn't want to ruin that streak when they were already on their last job.

Despite the surprising lack of destruction and fighting, the trip had been fun and Gray was a little disappointed that they'd be heading back to the guild tomorrow. It had been a two-week vacation of sorts, providing him with a break from some of the worries and troubles his life had brought him lately. There had been some fun fights and a lot of good-natured teasing and some good—if far less emotion-oriented—bonding time.

But that wasn't to say that everything had been perfect. There had been a few nights when Gray had woken up gasping for air, clawing his way out of a nightmare. Once or twice he had spent the rest of the night staring blankly at the ceiling and pretending to be asleep when Natsu finally started to stir, but for the most part the dreams weren't so bad that he was too reluctant to go back to sleep. Well, sometimes they were still pretty bad, but he was wary of staying up all night because he didn't want Natsu to find out about them.

He thought that Natsu might suspect that not everything was well yet, but he hadn't actually been woken up by Gray in the middle of the night again after that first time. Gray would rather keep it that way, because last time the idiot had gotten it into his head that it was a good idea to stay up all night to sit with him as he slept. He appreciated the gesture, really, but Natsu had been a mess the next day and Gray didn't want him to have to do that again. It was already bad enough that he had picked up a new habit of refusing to go to bed until he was sure that Gray was asleep and not planning to stay up all night. Oh, he thought he was being sneaky, pretending to be asleep while he kept one eye on his friend, but Gray had caught on to his tricks.

Gray had considered calling him on it, but decided to leave it be. It was kind of touching, and if it eased some of Natsu's concern about Gray's mental state then more power to him. It was better than having him freaking out about everything.

But with how closely Natsu was monitoring Gray, perhaps it was inevitable that they would have to have another nighttime chat eventually.

* * *

Gray woke with a gasp and a sob, automatically jerking up to a sitting position in his panic. His head promptly banged into something hard, and he flailed backwards with a surprised yelp. Still half-asleep, he peered at the intruder blearily.

"Natsu?" he asked slowly. The dragon slayer had apparently been leaning over Gray when he had woken and sat up abruptly, and had now collapsed on the edge of the bed to rub at his forehead with a grimace. "What the hell are you doing?"

Natsu scowled over at him, his narrowed eyes glinting in the faint moonlight streaming through the window, but his irritated expression quickly melted into something resembling worry.

"You were having a nightmare," he said, pushing at one of Gray's legs. "Scooch over." Gray immediately retracted his legs and folded them under the blankets, and Natsu slid over so that he was seated more comfortably on the bed and crossed his legs.

"You were tossing and turning and mumbling things," he continued. "You even cried out a couple of times. I was trying to wake you up, but it was kind of hard because you were really out. And you know what else is hard? Your skull. Damn, that hurt."

Gray tried to laugh, but it sounded strangled and breathy and didn't serve to assuage Natsu's concern. If anything, the dragon slayer's frown deepened.

"Sorry I woke you up," Gray apologized, although he was only half-focused on Natsu. He was jittery and on edge from the vague sense of dread and fear the nightmare had left him with, and his eyes darted around the darkened room frantically as if he actually expected something to jump out at him.

"It's okay," Natsu responded automatically. "Calm down," he added sharply, waving his hand in front of Gray's face. Gray flinched back at the unexpected movement, but at least it caught his attention and snapped him out of his half-formed panic. He abruptly stilled, his jerky motions ceasing as he stared at his friend with wide eyes. Natsu stared right back, but then his gaze slowly drifted downwards to rest on something else. "Why are you doing that?"

The question caught Gray off guard and he blinked at Natsu in confusion for a moment before following his gaze and looking down. What Natsu had found so disturbing was the unusual movements his hands were making. In his panicked state, Gray hadn't been completely aware that his hands had begun wringing in what looked almost like a washing motion. Hissing in horror, he flung his hands apart and gave them a wary look as if he expected them to start the endless cycle of dry-washing again as soon as he looked away.

"I don't know," he said, hurriedly shoving his hands under the blankets to prevent them from performing those automatic, subconscious movements again. "Nothing important."

Natsu bit his lip and looked suspicious. Once again, Gray regretted his inability to lie convincingly to his friend. And it  _was_ a lie. Gray knew exactly what it had been, and it bothered him more than nightmares. It had been a long time since he had caught himself doing that when he wasn't paying attention, and the reemergence of a nervous tic he had thought he had conquered was disheartening.

They sat in silence for a few more seconds as Gray waited for Natsu to call him out on his lie, but whatever the dragon slayer saw in his face convinced him to let it go. Natsu eventually sighed and averted his eyes.

"And here I was thinking that maybe your nightmares weren't as bad since you weren't waking me up anymore."

"They  _haven't_ been as bad," Gray assured him, not liking the disappointed look in his eyes. "Or I haven't been getting them as frequently, at least. It helped. You helped."

Because he could see that Natsu's disappointment wasn't directed at him, but mostly at himself. Gray didn't want him to think that his efforts weren't good enough, that he had failed. He had known Natsu long enough to see that he was worried he hadn't managed to help Gray at all despite all how hard he had tried. And Natsu  _had_ helped with some things. It was just that there were deeper emotional scars he couldn't touch, and Gray didn't want him to know about those.

Natsu nodded, but remained solemn. "So, what was it about this time?"

Gray hesitated. "I don't…I don't know," he responded slowly, furrowing his brow as he tried to sort out the tangled flashes of imagery and sound floating around in his head.

He truthfully couldn't say what the dream had been about, but it had been bad. He could still see quick flashes of blood and ice and death when he closed his eyes, and the faint, distorted echoes of desperate screams and heartbroken sobs rang in his ears.

He became aware that his hands had been inching closer together as if seeking comfort while he dug through these snatches of nightmare. He quickly unfolded his legs and drew them up to his chest so that he could lace his arms around them and keep his hands firmly clasped together so that they would stay still. Dropping his chin onto his knees, he stared blankly at Natsu, although he wasn't really seeing his friend.

He might not remember the details of the nightmare, but that heavy sense of abject terror and loss still haunted him. And yet, this half-remembered dream wasn't so terrible because of the fear it had induced, but because of the sadness. It made Gray feel heavy and depressed, along with that desperate fear that stemmed from a heartbreaking loss. It made him feel hopeless. The normal nightmares were something he had learned to deal with over the years, but the hopeless fear and crushing guilt they left behind only reminded him that there were some things he couldn't outrun. There were some things that would haunt him forever, no matter how many years had passed.

"Gray…"

He forced his eyes to focus on Natsu and automatically winced at seeing how worried he looked. That in itself Gray could handle, but he also looked so damn  _sad_ , and maybe even a little frightened. And that look did not belong on Natsu's face. Gray hated it because he hated to see his friend so upset, and he hated it even more because it was his fault this time. All he wanted to do was wipe that look off Natsu's face.

"It's okay," he said quickly. "It's not so bad. It'll–It'll get better. It's not always like this. It's not always–"

He broke off, aware that he had been rambling, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than anything else. At some point he had started rocking back and forth slightly, and he forced himself to stop and relax his hands so that his fingers weren't digging their nails into the opposite hand. When he looked at Natsu again, he wished that he hadn't said anything at all. Natsu didn't look convinced, and Gray couldn't blame him. It was mostly a pack of lies anyway.

It most definitely wasn't okay, because this was the stuff that had been eating away at him for years and years. And it  _was_ bad. God, it was bad. And not just the stupid nightmares. He really just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, because right now he hated himself and he hated the stupid things he had done and the stupid things he had almost done and the stupid things he was bound to do again someday.

Gray had lost his optimism years ago. He didn't think it was going to get better, not anymore. Sure, some of the raw anguish would dull a little over time and he would be able to focus on the present again to the point where he could talk and laugh and have a good time, but it was never going to go away. He knew it would never go away because it was always like this. Some days were better than others and there were times he was pretty okay, but this was always there, lurking under the surface. He could never quite forget.

No, the hurt wasn't always so raw. The mess with Galuna had brought all of his old insecurities and grief to the forefront again, and they would eventually start fading to the background once more, back to where they had embedded themselves in his fragile self-image. The others acknowledged that this renewed grieving was normal considering all the reminders he had just gotten, and as he started to seem to get better they would forget about some of it and assume that it was all over. Gray knew better. It would never go away. He would be able to laugh and act normal again, and there would be times he would be mostly okay, but he wasn't going to be as okay as everyone would think.

The grief and guilt and hopelessness and undercurrent of self-loathing were an integral part of him, and they were here to stay. To be honest, he wasn't sure who he would be if they were gone. If they magically disappeared one day, he wasn't sure that he would be able to recognize himself anymore.

Gray thought that was pretty pathetic.

"Gray…" Natsu said slowly, leaning forward a little as he stared at him intently, "don't lie to me."

All the air got sucked out of Gray all at once, and he took a shuddering breath as he curled further into himself. There was something about those words that made him want to start crying, and he could feel something inside him threatening to break. The walls seemed to close in around him, and it felt like he was suffocating because the sadness was so heavy that he couldn't breathe and the panic was creeping back again.

"I need…" He glanced around the room hurriedly before peering back at Natsu and nodding sharply. "I need to get out of here," he finished firmly.

Natsu frowned at the unexpected statement. "What?"

"I can't breathe in here," he muttered, sliding out of bed. Bending down, he picked up a shirt he had left on the floor earlier and pulled it over his head with trembling fingers. "I need to go outside for a few minutes."

There was a reason that he usually ended up wandering the streets after his nightmares, after all. He needed the chill night air to clear his head and sort out his thoughts. It would help him calm down and feel a little less trapped and hopeless.

A slight creaking sound from behind him caught his attention and he glanced back. Natsu had stood as well, and was watching him with an unusually solemn expression. For once, Gray had a hard time deciphering his normally open expression.

"Let me grab some shoes and I'll come with you."

"Don't bother," Gray replied, turning away. "I'll be back in a couple minutes."

He could hear soft footfalls as Natsu padded back to his side of the room and began tugging on those stupid sandals of his.

"You asked me to come with you," he called back, his voice slightly muffled.

"No, I didn't," Gray insisted with a frown, shifting to look at Natsu. In fact, he had been pretty sure that he had basically told his friend the exact opposite.

Finished with his shoes, Natsu looked over and raised an eyebrow. "Sure you did. When you asked me to come with you on this trip, what exactly did you think you were asking for?"

Gray stared at him wordlessly. Maybe he was right. Maybe that was part of the reason Gray had planned this trip and wanted him to come, because he had felt better when Natsu had comforted him the other night and didn't want to give that up yet. And to be honest, Gray was lying to himself when he said that he wanted to be alone now.

"Besides," Natsu added, his voice suddenly cheery, "I've always wanted to run around an unfamiliar city at night. It sounds exciting."

"You're such an idiot," Gray grumbled as he shook his head in disbelief and spun on his heel to open the door.

"Maybe, but you love me anyway," Natsu teased.

"You wish," Gray shot back as he reached the end of the hallway and emerged into the darkened street beyond.

He was almost amused by his friend's antics, but he was still too shaken up to fully appreciate them. Both he and Natsu knew that it was true anyway. That's where part of the problem stemmed from—Gray cared about his friends so much that it scared him sometimes, because he didn't know what he would do if something happened to them too.

Natsu had been snickering quietly, but quickly lapsed into silence as the duo strolled down the street. Gray shoved his hands into his pockets and tilted his head back a little to look at the stars as he walked. There was something vaguely comforting about all those pinpricks of light winking down at them from an otherwise dark sky. A chilly night breeze stirred the air and ruffled through his hair, and he relaxed a little at the familiar coldness. The hazy snatches of nightmares were harder to hang on to out here and some of Gray's jittery panic began to fade away as he left his dreams back in the stuffy hotel room.

He was almost starting to feel pretty okay when the stars seemed to take on a new meaning. There was something so… _hopeful_ about them. Gray didn't feel very hopeful right now, and he didn't want any reminders. All of those tiny lights looked so bright and cheerful, but in Gray's experience, lights couldn't hold out forever. His mouth twisted bitterly. Lights would always get swallowed up by the darkness eventually, because good didn't always triumph in the real world.

He looked away before his abstract thoughts could solidify into something even darker and more painfully concrete. He couldn't afford to become so disgustingly philosophic because that was always a prelude to prolonged periods of mourning for everyone he had lost.

As his gaze returned to the street, he noticed that Natsu was watching him carefully, a strange expression plastered on his face. Gray started in surprise, having half forgotten that Natsu was there while he was lost in his musings. The dragon slayer continued staring at him, and it was making Gray uncomfortable.

"What?" he asked sharply.

Natsu shook his head slowly, an almost puzzled frown tugging at his lips. "It's weird," he said, drawing his words out as he considered what he was trying to say. "You were really freaked out inside, but as soon as you got out here you calmed down right away. But it's not…It's not really gone." He paused and thought that over before nodding. "Yeah. You're still upset, but it's different now."

"Of course it's different," Gray said, giving him a funny look. "Before it was just dream panic. You know how it is when you have a nightmare and you're terrified when you wake up, but it fades away pretty quickly because it isn't real."

"If it fades away so quickly then why did you keep staying up all night instead of going back to sleep?"

Gray's gaze wandered away and he kicked halfheartedly at a pebble. It bounced away down the street, the soft clattering breaking the dead silence of the night.

"Because after the fake stuff fades, that's when the real stuff comes back," he replied quietly.

They walked along in silence for a few moments. Gray didn't look back at Natsu, but he could feel the dragon slayer's gaze boring into the side of his head.

"What is it that you're so afraid of?" Natsu asked finally.

"I thought you'd figured that out by now."

Natsu scowled. "Yeah, sometimes I think so too. But you don't tell me anything and you're damn hard to read sometimes. And right now you're being really weird and it's…weird."

Gray chose not to comment on the lackluster ending. After all, Natsu had a point. Gray made it a point to keep this darker, sadder side of himself hidden as much as possible. But he'd spent a lot of his life running away, and he was too tired to want to keep running right now.

Part of him wanted to just clam up and not tell Natsu anything, but part of him ached to drop this stupid game they had going on where they had to pretend that they didn't care and didn't have any weaknesses. Natsu had been the one to abandon the charade first, back when he had bothered Gray until he had caved and told him things he had never intended to tell anyone. And Natsu was the one who was trying to have a real conversation tonight too. Gray should probably reciprocate. It scared him a little because he wasn't used to talking about things he'd rather keep hidden, but he was also tired of pretending that everything was alright when it clearly wasn't fooling anyone.

"It's because I'm not… _scared_ scared. It's more like a…foreboding, I guess."

Natsu's eyebrows shot up. "A 'foreboding'?" he asked skeptically. Gray scowled over at him and he hurriedly backtracked, suddenly repentant. "Okay, okay, a foreboding. Got it."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Gray jammed his hands deeper into his pockets even though there was really nowhere for them to go and they just crushed themselves against the fabric. He slouched a little, hunching his shoulders slightly as he turned a corner and started down the next cobblestone street.

"You know what I mean. It's just this feeling, this knowledge, that one day someone else I care about is going to get hurt and it's going to be…"  _…my fault._ Gray shook his head slightly to banish the thought.

"You can't know that," Natsu offered, eyeing him carefully.

Gray met his eyes solemnly so that his friend could see that he was dead serious. "I can feel it," he insisted somberly. "Call me crazy, but I can feel it."

Maybe it was just a product of the nightmare's aftereffects, but at this moment Gray could say that he knew with absolute certainty that this wasn't over. He could feel it in his bones. Maybe tomorrow in the daylight this strange conviction would start fading away like a half-forgotten dream, but right now he was positive that he was right.

"I don't know who it will be," he muttered, frowning at the ground, "but there will be someone. And to be honest, you scare me the most right now."

"Me?" Natsu asked, confusion tinging his voice as his brows knit into a puzzled frown. "Why me? Is this about Deliora again?"

"Yes. And no. It's…Look." Gray extracted one hand to rub wearily at his face before returning it to his pocket. "Being a mage is a dangerous occupation. We know that, but we don't always think about it. And to be honest, a lot of us thrive on that danger and excitement. But I worry sometimes, you know? Erza worries me too because she's always pushing her limits, but I also trust her to take care of herself for the most part. We still need to keep an eye on her and give her backup when she won't ask for it, but she's usually okay. And it's easy to worry about Lucy because she isn't as strong as the rest of us, but she's also better at realizing when she needs help and she has a lot of people looking out for her.

"But you…You don't respect your limits. You're always pushing yourself too far and going up against impossible odds. You always jump right in and try to take on all of the toughest situations by yourself. So far it has worked out, but one day it's going to catch up to you."

A charged silence fell as Natsu processed that. As Gray waited for his friend's inevitably snippy protest, he glanced around and frowned at the shops they were passing. They had been in this city for three and a half days now, but he still wasn't overly familiar with its layout. He hoped that he hadn't taken a wrong turn, because he didn't really fancy getting lost tonight. Luckily, as they turned another corner, he spotted a familiar restaurant that they had eaten at a couple days ago and relaxed. At least they were going the right way.

Then Natsu finally spoke up again, and Gray's temporary satisfaction faded away as he was drawn back into the less than cheerful conversation.

"Wow…" the dragon slayer said slowly, drawing out the word in the silence. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. You know, I'm actually pretty tough. I can take care of myself."

"I know that," Gray said with a sigh. "But don't get blinded by the name of our guild—life isn't a fairy tale. Yeah, you're tough and you can usually beat the odds, but not everyone gets their happy ending, you know. You can pull off these impossible stunts because you believe in yourself and because the strength of your feelings gives you tremendous power and determination. But that's not always going to be enough."

He still wasn't looking at Natsu, but he heard him let out an irritated breath, which meant that he clearly wasn't getting the point yet. But still…Gray was almost glad that he was irritating his friend, because at least that meant that Natsu wouldn't have that awful, sad look on his face anymore.

"I fight for my friends," Natsu said, his voice hard. "I fight against impossible odds because I don't want them to get hurt. And you do the exact same thing, like on Galuna. And let's be honest with ourselves here, we're going to keep right on doing it too. It's part of who we are. You need to stop overthinking it—we've been okay so far."

Gray tilted his face upwards again and kept his eyes fixed blankly on the stars as he started speaking.

"I'm not asking you to stop," he said softly. "That would be rather hypocritical since I know that I couldn't make myself stop either. Fighting for the people you care about isn't a bad thing, but…" He looked down again, staring vacantly at the ground ahead of him as his lips tightened involuntarily. "I loved my parents, you know, and I loved Ur. And they loved me too. But in the end, that wasn't enough to save them. They died anyway."

His gaze finally drifted back to Natsu's face. Something in his words or eyes had caught his friend's attention. The earlier irritation had disappeared, and Natsu just looked pained and sad again.

"Gray–"

He shook his head sharply, wanting to say his piece before Natsu derailed everything by trying to make him feel better.

"Love, friendship, they're important," he continued. Natsu stopped in the middle of the street to watch him sadly and Gray paused as well, staring back at him steadily. "They're powerful. But they aren't an absolute safeguard, a guarantee that everything will work out in the end. Sometimes all the love in the world can't save you.

"We'll keep trying, of course. It's not a reason to give up. But it just…It makes me worry sometimes because we tend to assume that things will work out and we'll win and be okay, but I know that isn't always going to be true. I just…I don't want to see you get hurt. I've lost a lot of people, Natsu. I don't want to lose anyone else. I don't–I don't–"

Gray broke off and let out a shaky breath, unable to articulate his thoughts anymore. He had watched a lot of people die or get hurt, and a lot of it had been his fault, more or less. Then there was that feeling that he was going to see the people he cared about suffer again, and there was that nagging suspicion whispering in the back of his mind that it was going to be because of him. And that more than anything else, more than the demon that stalked his sleep and the real dangers that dotted his waking hours, was what frightened him.

He looked down as he became aware that his hands had automatically started rubbing together again. Pulling them apart, he stared at them for a moment, not pleased to see that they were trembling. He hurriedly shoved them back into his pockets where they belonged.

"Gray…"

He forced himself to look at Natsu again. God, he hated seeing that out-of-place expression on his face. He should say something, but he couldn't think of a single thing to say right now that wouldn't send him over the edge.

"I don't–"

He felt his face twisting in grief and stopped talking. Something flashed in Natsu's eyes and he stepped forward so that he was only centimeters away from Gray. He brushed a hand against the ice mage's arm so softly that it could be mistaken for accidental, although Gray knew it was not.

"Shh, it's okay," Natsu said in a low voice. "I'm here."

Gray stiffened in surprise and narrowed his eyes at Natsu, the tears pricking at their corners suddenly forgotten. He recognized those words. That was part of what he had said to Natsu, but his friend had been asleep at the time. Gray had come back from doing that mission and found him tossing and turning and muttering in his sleep. Natsu had said Gray's name, and the ice mage had felt bad because he'd realized that this was his fault too. But Natsu had been asleep, so he shouldn't have really heard or remembered those words. It could have been a coincidence, and it probably was one, but it still rattled Gray.

"I'm sorry."

Natsu drew back and frowned at him, then smirked a little. "Aha. I knew it was you," he said, sounding pleased with himself.

Gray stared at him blankly, not following. "What?" Then he realized where Natsu was getting it from—he had apologized after saying that other stuff. He shook his head sharply. "No, I meant I'm  _sorry_ ," he corrected. "I'm sorry about your nightmares."

Now it was Natsu's turn to look puzzled again, but Gray just shrugged and turned away. He started back down the street, and after a few seconds he heard Natsu's footsteps on the cobblestones behind him.

"They're not so bad. I don't even get them that often. That one was just 'cause we'd been talking. Besides, it's not your fault."

"Isn't it?" Gray asked, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards into a dry, unamused smile.

"Of course not," Natsu insisted, hurrying to catch up so that he could walk by Gray's side. He scowled over at the ice mage, who looked back at him impassively. "You blame yourself for the stupidest things."

"Maybe so," Gray conceded, "but it's something I did that scared you enough to give you nightmares, isn't it?"

Natsu looked away. "Still not your fault," he grumbled. "It's like we were saying. We tend to do stupid stuff to protect our friends. I'm not saying I approve of you trying to use iced shell, but you were just trying to protect us, even if you were going about it the wrong way. Not your fault."

Gray sighed and scuffed his foot against the ground moodily. "Except that I wasn't just using iced shell as a last resort to protect you guys and you know it."

He could feel Natsu's eyes suddenly burning into his skull, but he didn't look over. They had finally reached the city outskirts, and Gray let out a breath as they passed the final buildings and began following the trail down to the ocean. This was a beachside town, which was nice since he often felt drawn to the water when he was brooding. Stepping off the main city road, he began following the sandy path down to the shore.

"At that point, I was going to use iced shell no matter what happened," he continued quietly, still not completely sure that he wanted to go this far with Natsu. "Even if we had found another possible way to defeat Deliora, I would have still tried to use it anyway. It felt fitting, it felt right. It felt like what I deserved, really, and I wanted to use it. I wanted to.

"In essence, I was giving up. And you knew it. Maybe the others didn't realize it, but you saw how I was with Lyon even before the demon was resurrected. I was looking for any reason to use it." He glanced over at Natsu again and met his eyes solemnly. "The reason you're still scared, why you have nightmares, is because you knew that I was giving up, and if I gave up once then I could give up again." His gaze wandered away. "Yes, I wanted to protect you from the damn demon, but I wasn't using iced shell out of necessity. I had a choice and I chose to give up.  _That's_ what makes this my fault."

They reached the seashore and Gray headed directly for the water, his feet sinking into the sand as made his way across the beach. Natsu followed silently, and they had almost reached the ocean before he spoke again.

"It was fucking terrifying," he said finally, his voice wavering slightly. "You were suddenly so different. It was like a whole other side of you I've never seen before, and it scared me because you were so damn self-destructive. You were just going to throw away your life like it was nothing and I couldn't understand it. So it scares me to see how broken up you've been since Galuna because  _yes_ , you gave up and I don't want to see that happen again. You aren't supposed to give up like that. Don't you  _dare_ do that again."

Gray let out a shuddering breath and couldn't make himself look at his friend. He supposed that he was glad that Natsu was finally telling him this instead of just holding it in. He had initially been annoyed with how persistent Natsu had been about bothering him to reveal what was wrong, but he had eventually realized that something like this was at least partially behind the dragon slayer's stubborn determination. Natsu had needed to know that Gray wasn't giving up again, and Gray hadn't known how to give him that then. He hoped he could do a little better now.

Because although there would always be a small part of him that was hurting enough to give up, a part that was morbidly fascinated with iced shell and the death he should have died so many times, he thought that he was doing a little better now. That little piece had been locked back up where it belonged again, and the rest of Gray still wanted to live with his friends.

"I heard you," he said quietly, stopping at the edge of the water to stare out absently at the ocean.

"Did you?" Natsu asked, his voice taking on a brittle edge. "Did you really?"

Gray sighed softly. "Yes, Natsu, I heard your voice. Didn't I tell you that I wasn't going anywhere?"

Although he kept his eyes fixed on the water, he heard Natsu's exhale of relief from beside him. Apparently he had managed to say the right thing for once.

"Good," Natsu replied. "That's…good." They watched the soft ocean swells in silence for a few minutes before he spoke up again. "Were you intending to come here the whole time? Because there's no way you would have been out for only a couple minutes if you planned on walking all the way across the city to get at the beach."

One corner of Gray's mouth twitched upwards. "You got me," he admitted. "I don't know if this is where I was planning to go when I left, but I would have probably ended up here anyway. I always seem to end up by the water when I'm thinking."

Natsu raised an eyebrow. "Water's…good. You know, whatever works for you."

The faint smile on Gray's face vanished and he pursed his lips. "Honestly, I'm not sure that it's necessarily a good thing. I've never been able to look at the ocean the same way ever since."

"Ever since…what?" Natsu asked. Gray just stared out at the water pensively, and after a moment the dragon slayer shifted. "Oh," he said quietly.

Gray nodded slightly, realizing that Natsu had figured it out. Taking a tiny step forward so that he was as close to the water as possible without actually touching it, he looked down at the water flowing up by his feet and then receding back down the sand and into the ocean once more. Water had never bothered him before, but now every time he saw the ocean he thought of Ur.

"It shouldn't have ended up like this," he muttered, half to himself. "She shouldn't have had to… It should have been…"  _…me._ But he couldn't say that, because Natsu was already worried about him. "It should have been different," he said instead.

Natsu shot him a worried look, and Gray wondered if he had figured it out anyway.

"It sucks," the dragon slayer said bluntly, "but it was a long time ago. Sure it's gonna hurt, but you're going to have to let go someday."

Gray almost wanted to smile at Natsu's frankness, but sighed instead. "I know. It's been a long time, but I still miss her. I don't think that's ever going to change, and I'm not sure that I want it to."

Stepping on the back of one of his shoes, he pulled his foot out of it and then stepped on the heel of his other shoe so that he could step out of that one as well. He absently nudged the abandoned shoes with one foot so that they were sitting side by side in the sand above the tideline. Then he turned and began walking along the beach, parallel to the shoreline, staying close enough to the ocean so that the water would lap at his feet before it receded again.

If Natsu found it an odd thing to do, he didn't comment. He just followed suit, leaving his sandals in the sand beside Gray's shoes and keeping pace with the ice mage.

"I think that's normal," he said finally. "You loved her and she's gone now, so of course you still miss her. It's just that you should stop beating yourself up about it eventually."

"Hm."

Gray splashed through some water as it surged over his feet and then retreated back out to sea again. He dug his feet into the wet sand as he walked, hyperaware of the damp grains between his toes and the soft sound of the ocean lapping at the shore. It wasn't  _comforting_ , per se, but it was  _something_.

"Maybe it still bothers me because I wasn't always very good to her," he mused. "I cared about her, but…you know what I was like as a kid. I was a pain in the neck to deal with. She thought it was just because I was angry and broken after what happened to my parents, and I was. But I also sometimes resented her, and that wasn't fair to her."

"You resented her?" Natsu asked, puzzled. "Why?"

Gray looked over at him sharply. He hadn't really been paying much attention to what he had been saying or he wouldn't have brought that up. This wasn't something he wanted to talk about. Grimacing faintly, he looked away again.

He had grown to love Ur, but there was one thing he had held a grudge for and he felt terrible about it. He had mostly let it go over time, but every once in a while he had still felt a prickle of resentment over it and she didn't deserve that.

"Nothing important," he said shortly. "But I guess…I wish that I had the chance to tell her that I was sorry."

Natsu hesitated a moment before deciding to drop the topic since Gray clearly wasn't open to discussing it.

"She probably knew," he offered instead.

"Probably," Gray agreed. "But I still miss her. Actually, I still missed a lot of people over the years, even Lyon." A thought struck him and he looked back at Natsu with new eyes. "Huh, maybe part of the reason you worry me so much is because you remind me of him."

Natsu looked instantly offended. "I remind you of a crazed psychopath who likes to resurrect demons and try to kill people in his spare time?" he asked disbelievingly. "Gee, thanks."

"He wasn't always like that," Gray said quietly, looking back down at his feet.

He turned his head and stared back at the two sets of footsteps trailing behind them in the wet sand. Another little wave rushed up and when it receded a moment later, the footprints it had covered were gone. He grimaced and turned back around.

"He was always obsessed with becoming stronger, kind of like you. Ur was his goal, his role model. It's like how you always keep trying to fight Erza and Gildarts. He wanted to get powerful enough to surpass her, and he trained really hard to try accomplishing that. When Ur died…That must have been when he started going off the deep end. He had been so focused on surpassing her that he didn't know what to do when she was gone.

"I don't think you'd go crazy like that, regardless of what happened. But…I don't know. There are similarities there that are hard to ignore, and I don't want to see your life get messed up the same way I messed up his."

"You didn't mess up his life."

"Well, he thinks I did."

A shadowy shape loomed out of the darkness ahead of them and Gray squinted at it, trying to puzzle out what it might be. Then he realized that they must have reached the end of this section of beach. He had Natsu had messed around here a couple days ago, and he recalled that they had eventually run into a giant pile of jagged rock slabs that extended a good ways up the beach all the way down to the water's edge. Presumably the shape in the distance was that rock pile. Gray considered turning back around, but then mentally shrugged and decided that they might as well just walk to it before heading back.

"I hope he learned something from Galuna," he continued now that his curiosity was satisfied. "It would do him some good to find a guild or something and make some new goals. Maybe he'll figure out how to let go of his obsession and find something new to live for."

"I think he will," Natsu said, a little grudgingly. "He was a real annoying bastard, but he seemed a little less psycho after Deliora fell apart."

Gray smiled faintly. "You can be a real annoying bastard too."

"Touché," Natsu conceded with a laugh.

"And you can annoy me just as much as he did. We used to bicker and brawl just like you and I do." He smiled a little at the memory, before eyeing Natsu contemplatively. "Maybe part of the reason I didn't get along with you at first was because of how much you reminded me of him."

Natsu blinked at him, his face twisting in confusion. "You didn't like me because I reminded you of someone you liked? How does that work exactly?"

Gray chuckled but then turned serious again. He slowed for a moment to drag one foot through the wet sand and then continued on walking, leaving the water to fill in the shallow trough behind him.

"I didn't come to Fairy Tail looking for friends," he answered, not looking at Natsu. "In fact, I didn't want them. I was grieving and angry at the world and wasn't interested in getting along with people. But it's hard to be a part of Fairy Tail without making friends."

He had come to the guild reluctant to get close to anyone else, but he had soon started collecting projects. At first, the people he had grudgingly become friends with were people he had realized were hurting like him, and he had done his best to help them without letting them see how broken he himself was. He never pushed them to tell him what haunted them, but he tried comforting them in his own way when he found them hurting.

First he had met a girl who seemed bubbly and happy, but who held some hidden sadness that she had never fully explained to him but had something to do with her father, whoever he might be. She had been Gray's first friend in Fairy Tail. Then there had been the annoying, armor-clad girl who he had liked picking fights with until he found her crying by the riverbank. And then an irritating, loud-mouthed boy with the most ridiculous pink hair Gray had ever seen had joined the guild. He had seemed cheerful enough and full of life, but sometimes he would get a lonely look on his face as he absently played with his precious scarf, and Gray knew that he had lost someone important that he kept looking for but could never find. Then there was the man who seemed like nothing more than a happy-go-lucky flirt but was still haunted by a past he couldn't outrun, a past Gray suspected had something to do with a celestial spirit mage given his aversion to the breed.

Gray had known enough of pain and grief to recognize it in others, and he had been unable to ignore people who were hurting like he hurt. He didn't think that they all realized it, but he had collected them and watched out for them. Sometimes the comfort he offered was subtle enough to pass undetected, but there had been more than one occasion on which he had gone out of his way to help someone who was having a hard time.

It was kind of ironic, really. He had spent a lot of time and energy comforting everyone else, but maybe he was the one who had needed the most help out of them all.

"It was the people who were hurting that drew me in first," he remarked, deciding to just be honest. "I didn't like to see people hurting the same way I was hurting, so I gathered them all up and did my best to help them: Cana, Erza, you, Loke, even Mira, after Lisanna…" He trailed off and took a moment to collect his thoughts. He didn't want to talk about Lisanna's death, because he knew that it still hurt Natsu. "I guess I can't say why, exactly. Maybe it was a selfish way to make myself feel better. Maybe it was a distraction from my own problems. Maybe it was a penance of sorts." He sighed and glanced back out at the ocean. "I think that maybe it was because taking care of other people was easier than taking care of myself."

They were drawing near to the rock pile now. They were close enough that Gray could make out the individual boulders from the shadows, and he headed directly for it.

"I think that it was because you were still hurting a lot from everything that had happened to you, and it genuinely bothered you to see other people in pain," Natsu said quietly, scuffing his bare foot in the sand distractedly. "I think that you tried to stay distant from us but you couldn't because you naturally want to help people, not out of any benefits you might get from it, but because you genuinely want to help them feel better for their own sake.

"But you know, even though helping other people is well and good, you can ask for help when you need it too."

Gray glanced over to see Natsu watching him somberly. The dragon slayer gave him a meaningful look and Gray bit his lip. He knew that, but it wasn't always so easy. Maybe the reason it felt so weird to have Natsu looking after him now, the reason he tended to get so defensive, was that he was so used to hiding his own pain and helping his other friends that it felt strange to be on the opposite end of that.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay."

The duo reached the mound of stone slabs and stopped short. Gray pivoted so that he was facing the ocean and, leaning against one of the rocks jutting out of the pile, he stared out pensively.

"When I was younger," he began thoughtfully, "I used to think that I was cursed. I mean, I knew it was stupid, but sometimes I'd get the feeling that everyone I cared about was destined to die. I originally thought that maybe that was why I was so reluctant to make new friends, but I've had some time to think things through over the years and I've come up with a different theory.

"I think the reason that I didn't want to make friends was because I was scared. I was scared that I'd let myself care about someone and then they'd get hurt or die. If I didn't care about anyone then it wouldn't hurt so much if something happened to them, and I wouldn't have to risk another situation like with my parents or Ur again. But then you all started worming your way into my heart, and it's really hard to stop caring once you start. Then again, the effort might have been doomed to failure from the start, because I've never been good at not caring. So I started caring and then I got scared."

He smiled over at Natsu sadly. "Well, there you go. Maybe this is what you were looking for when you asked what scared me. I guess everything else traces back to that. I was scared to care because I didn't want to get hurt, and now that I care, I'm scared of getting hurt again."

The two mages stared at each other in the darkness for a few seconds. Natsu looked concerned and faintly horrified, but then he pursed his lips and shook his head.

"I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit," he disagreed. "Yeah, you're probably scared of getting hurt again. If I'd experienced half the things you have, I'd probably be terrified of seeing something like that again too. But I think that's only half the story. It's what I was telling you before—you really care about us too, not just yourself. You're concerned for our safety for our own sake too, not just because of the risk you might get hurt again.

"In fact, I think you're more concerned for us than you are for yourself."

Gray hunched his shoulders slightly and looked away again. There was truth in that. He did genuinely worry about his friends because he didn't want to see anything happen to them. But he also knew that he was scared of losing anyone else because he didn't want to get hurt again, and that bothered him sometimes because it seemed like a very selfish reason to be frightened. Sighing quietly, he reflected that things had been much simpler and easier when he hadn't cared. Then his lips twitched upwards ruefully. He wasn't sure that there actually  _had_ been a time when he hadn't cared.

He looked back over at Natsu, who was studying him carefully.

"I don't want to go back yet," he said.

Natsu blinked in surprise at the unexpected change of topic. "Um, well we can stay out here a little longer if you want, I guess," he replied uncertainly. "We can always sleep on the train tomorrow."

"No, I meant that I don't want to go back to Magnolia yet."

Natsu just stared at him, and Gray found himself twisting his hands together uncertainly. He wanted to see his other friends of course, but maybe not quite yet. He needed some more time to himself after tonight. Well, not to himself, exactly. He thought he might need some more of this time out on the road with Natsu. It was just the right mix of adventure and fun and that little bit of comfort he was usually too afraid to ask for. This trip had fostered a sense of camaraderie and closeness that Gray was desperate to keep, and he was afraid that it would fade away once they were back at the guild again. He wanted to hold on to that feeling for a little longer.

"I know we're supposed to go back tomorrow," he said, wringing his hands anxiously, "but I just…I need a couple more days. Couldn't we just hang around here and find something else to do for another day or two? Just like one more day?"

Natsu's face was unreadable and it made Gray nervous. His gaze slid to the side, fixing on a point somewhere to the dragon slayer's left. His stomach twisted unpleasantly as the silence dragged on, and he was just about to tell Natsu to forget about it when his friend finally spoke.

"You know how you wouldn't let me burn down this mayor's mansion?"

Gray eyed him warily and nodded. "He's a jerk, but it's also his home and we really don't need to deal with Erza's wrath when we get back."

Natsu nodded in acknowledgement but pressed on. "Well, I did some snooping and found out that he has a summer mansion in the countryside. It's a couple miles away from the nearest town and it's currently vacant. Even the hired help is gone for now and won't be back until a couple weeks before he decides to make the trip over there." He grinned suddenly. "I have every intention of burning it down while I have the chance."

It took a moment for Gray to process that but then he shook his head disbelievingly, amused by his friend's antics.

"He  _was_ a real piece of work," he said thoughtfully.

Natsu smirked. "He was. And I can't wait to teach him a lesson. What do you say, Gray? Want to come with me?"

Gray smiled a little, reminded of his own tough love approach to asking Natsu to come on this trip in the first place. He could even still remember his friend's response.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," he breathed.

Natsu's grin widened. "Awesome!"

In his excitement, he jumped up onto one of the jagged ledges of rock sticking out from the mound of stones. And then he kept right on climbing up the pile. Gray watched him in bemused amusement for a second, before frowning up at him.

"What are you doing? Come back down before you break your neck," he called up.

"I really wanted to climb this thing the other day," Natsu said cheerfully, grinning down at him. "And I want to be king of the rock hill!"

Gray shook his head in disbelief. He knew for a fact that those rocks were slippery and damp because of the waves that crashed against them, and there were a lot of uneven and jagged surfaces. Natsu was tough and durable and could hold his own against a pile of rocks, but Gray thought it was a stupid idea anyway.

"Come on," he tried again. "I'd like to get some sleep, which means we're going to have to walk all the way back down the beach again to get our shoes, and then we have to go back through the whole city to get to the hotel."

"Yeah, yeah, you have no sense of adventure," Natsu shot back.

Gray rolled his eyes and watched as the dragon slayer reached the top of the pile. Natsu stood on the tallest rock he could find and raised his hands in triumph.

"I'm king of the–!"

He broke off abruptly as he lost his footing on the slippery rock and went crashing all the back to the ground, banging into all the rocks on the way down. Gray cursed under his breath and hurried over to tug his fallen friend to his feet unceremoniously.

"Ow," Natsu complained.

"What the hell were you thinking, flame brain?" Gray griped, looking him over for any obvious injuries.

"That it would be fun?"

Gray shook his head in exasperation. "Any broken bones? Bleeding?"

"Back off," Natsu grumbled, shaking him off. "You don't have to fuss. I'm just gonna have some bruises." He took a step forward and winced. "Okay, a lot of bruises. And also a black eye."

"Here, ice it down," Gray said, quickly molding a small block of ice and tossing it to his friend.

Natsu caught it and, despite his grumbling, pressed it against his injured eye.

"Right when you finally recovered from all the damage the shower inflicted on you," Gray remarked in amused exasperation. "Apparently all inanimate objects are out to get you now."

"Hey, don't tease," Natsu protested, grinning toothily. "They're tough opponents."

"Oh please," Gray muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Besides, you don't have to keep mother-henning me. I still have some of that nasty-smelling goop you got me for all the bruises the shower gave me. I think I'll live."

Shaking his head again, Gray turned away and started back down the beach, towards where they had abandoned their footwear earlier. Natsu followed, snickering until his movements jolted some of his sore spots and made him curse under his breath. Gray slowed down so that the limping dragon slayer could keep up.

"Oh hey!" Natsu said excitedly after a second. "I think one of my teeth is loose!"

Gray looked over to see him vigorously prodding a tooth with one finger. He was going cross-eyed trying to look down and see the tooth, which made Gray want to smack him for being so dumb since there was no way he'd be able to see anything in his mouth anyway.

"Put the ice back on your eye," Gray ordered. Natsu rolled his eyes but obeyed, still poking at his tooth with the other hand. "And honestly, why are you so excited about a loose tooth? They don't grow back, you know. You're going to have a stupid-looking gap in your mouth."

"Yeah, but it's like a battle scar, see?" Natsu explained, grinning over at him. "People will ask me how I lost my tooth and I can tell them the whole heroic story. I've always kind of wanted to do that."

Gray stared at him for a second, waiting to see if he'd crack and start laughing since he couldn't possibly be  _that_ stupid, but he seemed to be serious.

"You want to tell the story of how you were oh-so-heroically defeated by a pile of rocks?" Gray asked in scornful disbelief.

Natsu blinked at him blankly for a moment, and then a horrified look spread over his face. "Oh crap, I didn't think about that," he wailed. "I was just thinking that it would be kinda cool to have a missing tooth to tell a story about."

"I suppose you could always just make up your own version of events and tell everyone that it got knocked out in an epic fight or something."

"You wouldn't give me away?" Natsu asked hopefully.

Gray threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing across the dark water.

"Of course I would!" he chortled. "I'm going to have so much fun telling everyone about how you knocked out a tooth while losing a fight with a giant rock."

Natsu's face fell. He poked at his tooth gingerly again. "You know, I don't think it's actually loose after all."

"You're such an idiot," Gray said in fond exasperation.

Natsu's smile returned full force. "Maybe, but you love me anyway," he teased again.

The automatic reply of 'you wish' sprung to Gray's lips, but he found himself saying something else instead.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said. Natsu looked surprised at the admission for a second, but then smirked and looked much too pleased with himself. Gray decided that it was prudent to take him down a peg. "Although goodness knows why," he added critically. "I haven't found a reason yet."

The statement didn't have the intended effect. Natsu's grin widened even further, and even Gray found himself smiling ruefully.

They both knew that it was a lie.


	2. Birthday Traditions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one utilizes a slightly AUish element that I don't normally consider part of my headcanon but sometimes use for angst purposes and... Well, no point explaining until you've read it.

Natsu kept an eye on Gray over the next few months, but things seemed to be steadily improving. He hadn't had another meltdown, and had been acting much more normally. But Natsu wasn't naïve enough to think that everything was suddenly okay. He had been able to see signs that Gray was still hurting in the months since Galuna, but most of them had gradually faded.

Natsu was confident that he was a lot less depressed, but there  _was_ one thing that nagged at him as Gray's birthday approached. Gray had told Natsu that he often had a hard time on his birthdays for reasons the dragon slayer didn't like to think about. So although he had seemed generally cheerful and positive for a couple months, Natsu was a little worried now that his birthday was coming up. Of course, he couldn't say for sure what he should be expecting when Gray's birthday rolled around. His friend had only mentioned his birthday issues in the context of his nightmares, but Natsu knew that it must be more than that. Gray had made it obvious that his birthdays were the worst day of the year for his nightmares, which meant that this wasn't something to be taken lightly. Natsu could still vividly remember what a mess Gray had been after Galuna when he wasn't sleeping because of the nightmares, and he didn't want to see that happen again. He wasn't going to let that happen again. He'd stay up all night with Gray again if he had to.

There was something else that bothered him about this whole situation as well. Natsu had known Gray for years and he had never noticed anything too off about his friend around his birthday. He'd never seen any signs of sleeplessness like he'd noticed after Galuna, and if Gray had been upset during the day then he had hid it well. He had always seemed completely normal, laughing and joking around with his friends as they celebrated his day. So either Natsu was overexaggerating the severity of the issue, or it was worse than Gray was letting on and he was going to great lengths to hide any sign that something was wrong.

Natsu decided to take the better-safe-than-sorry approach, so he watched Gray carefully when his birthday finally dawned. It passed much the same as any other. There was a big party—Fairy Tail was always looking for any reason to party, after all, and birthdays were great excuses—and everyone was laughing and having a good time. There were games and gifts and good-natured teasing, and Gray laughed along with everyone else, amused by their over-the-top antics. He didn't seem as overexcited as everyone else, but then again, that was pretty typical. In fact, everything seemed so normal that Natsu began doubting himself a little.

And then he began noticing some subtle cues. Gray was going through the motions and acting completely normal, but every once in a while his eyes would glaze over for a half-second or an unreadable emotion would flash over his face so quickly that it was impossible to decipher. Towards the evening, he began glancing at the clock surreptitiously every few minutes, as if he was impatient to leave.

All of these things were so subtle as to be barely there at all, and Natsu only caught them by chance. He realized that these signs had probably been present all day, but he hadn't noticed them even though he had been watching his friend. The only reason he had seen any of them at all was because he was specifically looking for signs that Gray was more upset than he was letting on. It was a rather disturbing thought, actually, because it meant that Natsu didn't usually pick up on when Gray was unhappy. It made him wonder what else he had missed over the years.

It was a little before seven o'clock when Gray finally seemed to decide that he had stayed long enough so as not to arouse too much suspicion.

"Alright, I think I'm going to head out," he announced when the conversation hit another lull.

"Already?" Cana asked, her voice slurred. She looked over from where she was sitting at the bar. "It's so early! Come have a drink with me before you go!"

Gray laughed easily and threw her an indulgent smile. "Not today, Cana. Maybe next time."

"What next time?" she grumbled, taking another swig of her drink. "You  _never_ drink with me."

"Oh, give him a break, Cana," Mira interrupted cheerfully. "You know that he doesn't drink."

"Yeah, but it's his birthday," the drunken girl protested sourly. "He should lighten up and celebrate some."

If Natsu hadn't been watching Gray then he would have missed the suddenly strained look in his eyes and the way his hands clenched involuntarily for a moment. The out-of-place emotions disappeared as quickly as they had come and Gray's smile returned, but Natsu was sure that he hadn't imagined it.

"What, haven't I already celebrated plenty?" Gray asked in amusement, a teasing note entering his voice.

"Hmph," Cana grumbled. "Obviously not enough. It's still too early for you to be leaving."

"But remember that he always has 'important things' to take care of on his birthday," Mira said, smiling over at Gray. "He usually leaves early."

Gray smiled back ruefully, acknowledging the good-natured jibe. Now that Natsu thought about it, Mira was right. Gray usually did leave a little earlier than usual on his birthday. He had always been intentionally vague on  _why_  exactly, but he had mentioned having 'important things' and traditions that he did outside of the guild. Natsu had never thought much of it—Gray was allowed to have a life outside of the guild, after all—but now that he was looking for any sign that Gray was acting unusually, he found it a little suspicious.

"Alright, alright," Cana conceded with a sigh. "'Night, Gray. See ya tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Cana." His smile softened a little. "I had a lot of fun today. Thanks for that."

She looked a little mollified, and Gray moved on to give thanks and goodbyes to the others. Within a few minutes he had disappeared out the door, leaving Natsu staring after him with narrowed eyes.

"Happy," Natsu said, "I've got important things to do tonight."

"You too?" the little cat asked with a laugh.

Natsu smiled back, but it didn't reach his eyes. Happy noticed and quickly sobered.

"What's wrong?" the Exceed questioned, suddenly worried.

"I don't know," Natsu replied somberly. "Maybe nothing, but I need to go check on a few things. I don't know if I'll come back to the house tonight or not."

"You might not come back?" Happy asked sharply, his voice rising in pitch. "What's going on? Do you want me to come with you?"

Natsu's smile was a little more genuine this time as he sought to reassure his friend. "I'm fine, but it would be better if I did this alone."

Happy nodded reluctantly, still looking worried. "Are you sure–?"

"Yep. 'Night, Happy. I'll see you later."

Natsu hurriedly said goodnight to everyone and made his excuses for leaving so early. Then he headed out into the slowly fading light and hurried down the street, following Gray's scent.

He caught up to his friend a couple blocks away from his apartment. It was the time of year when days were short and darkness fell early, so Natsu had to squint in the dim dusk light to make out Gray's expression. Gray was walking slowly, his hands jammed into his pockets once more as he stared vacantly at the ground with slightly narrowed eyes. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn't initially notice when Natsu fell into place walking beside him.

They were already walking up to the apartment when Gray broke free of his musings to fish his key out of his jacket pocket, and that was when he noticed Natsu. His impressive double take would have been amusing under normal circumstances, but Natsu wasn't inclined to smile at the moment.

"What are you doing?" Gray asked, coming to an abrupt stop.

Natsu shrugged. "You left your party early again. Can't I check up on a friend?"

Gray snorted. "You? Yeah right. The last time you 'checked up' on me was…" There was a pause and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he began putting the pieces together. "After Galuna Island. Don't tell me that's what you're worried about."

"You told me some very disturbing things about your birthday," Natsu said bluntly, not willing to be put off.

Gray chuckled darkly, his eyes suddenly alight with bitter amusement at a joke only he understood.

"'Disturbing things', huh?" He shook his head slightly. "You don't know the half of it," he muttered under his breath so quietly that Natsu wouldn't have been able to hear it at all if it wasn't for his extra-sensitive hearing.

"Look," he continued tiredly, the bitterness disappearing as he raised his voice to a normal volume again, "I was a mess after Galuna. I've had some time to recover from that and I'm doing better now. You don't have to worry so much. Go home, flame brain. I'm doing fine."

Natsu stared his friend down and scowled. "You sure don't look fine to me," he disagreed. "And I'm not going anywhere yet."

All of the signs during the party were subtle enough that he could have misinterpreted them, but when he had seen Gray walking down the street so lost in his own thoughts that he had even failed to notice Natsu at first, he knew for sure that his friend was not as alright as he wanted them to believe.

Gray stared back at him, reading the determination and stubbornness in his face. "Natsu, go–"

" _No_."

Gray seemed to curl into himself before Natsu's eyes, his shoulders hunching and his hand clenching so tightly around the key that it was sure to be painful. He averted his gaze, but not before Natsu saw the suddenly broken look there.

"Please, Natsu," he whispered brokenly, almost begging. "Please leave."

Natsu's heart twisted painfully, because Gray didn't beg. If he was so desperate for Natsu to leave, it was because he knew that he was moments away from breaking down and didn't want the dragon slayer to see it. Natsu had hoped that after their post-Galuna bonding experience Gray would be a little more open about his feelings. And he  _had_ been, for a time, which made Natsu wonder how much worse this time must be if Gray was too afraid to let him see it even after everything they had already shared.

"Gray," he said quietly, "you can't really expect me to leave you alone right now. Let's go inside and talk."

"Natsu–"

" _No_. I'm not leaving."

Gray stood there uncertainly for a moment, looking small and lost—two words Natsu wouldn't normally associate with him. Then he let out a shuddering breath and turned away abruptly, heading for his apartment. Twisting the key in the lock, he pushed his way inside and left the door standing open as he dropped the key on a side table and walked into his living room.

Natsu followed silently, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He hesitated to move further, instead watching Gray as he collapsed on the couch facing away from him. Natsu couldn't see his face, but he was pretty confident that his friend had that vacant, glazed-over look again. He briefly considered flicking on the light since it was getting dark, but Gray had purposely ignored it so he decided not to.

He walked across the room and sat down beside Gray gingerly, noticing that he was staring absently at the carpet, his mouth twisted into a faint grimace. He didn't look over as Natsu sat down and the dragon slayer thought his friend might've failed to notice him again, but then Gray finally spoke.

"When you asked why my birthday was the worst for my nightmares, I wasn't completely honest with you," he said finally, his voice subdued.

"You lied to me?" Natsu asked in disbelief.

He was having a hard time believing that. Everything Gray had said seemed genuinely honest and heartbroken. If he had wanted to lie about why he had problems with his birthday, he would have come up with something far less worrisome than telling Natsu that he thought he should be dead.

Natsu's keen eyes struggled to make out the details of Gray's expression in the darkness blanketing the room, but it remained unreadable.

"No, that was all true. But there's another reason that my birthdays are the worst."

Natsu's worry deepened. Everything Gray had already told him was bad enough. He didn't know what could possibly be worse.

"What?" he asked hoarsely, hardly daring to breathe.

Gray didn't respond immediately, and the silence dragged on for a long time before he finally stirred. He pulled one leg up onto the couch and bent it at the knee so that his foot could rest on the edge. Hooking an arm around his bent leg, he rested his chin on his knee and stared ahead blankly.

"Today's the day that Deliora destroyed my home and killed my parents," he said finally, his voice dull.

Natsu stared at him in shock, unable to believe his ears. There was no possible way that was true. That would mean that Gray had hidden this for years, that he had sat through the parties the guild always threw for him and then went home to grieve. It meant that they had always expected him to celebrate and make merry, not knowing that this day was anything but happy for him. Natsu couldn't accept that. He couldn't accept that they had never noticed how unhappy Gray was, had always made him feel like he had to celebrate and laugh for their sake even though he was mourning. There was no way that they could have been that unknowingly cruel.

And yet, even though Natsu couldn't see Gray's face, he could tell that his friend was deadly serious.

" _What?_ " he whispered harshly, partly disbelieving and wholly horrified.

Gray laughed breathlessly, the sound brittle, almost a sob. "Yeah," he said, his lips quirking into a bitter half-smile. "Damn impressive coincidence, huh?"

"Coincidence," Natsu repeated stupidly, a nauseous feeling settling in his stomach.

Gray finally looked over at him, and Natsu immediately saw why his friend had been so insistent that he leave. There was so much raw grief and anguish in his face that it made Natsu depressed just seeing it. Everything about Gray seemed to be cracking, crumbling, breaking into a million shattered pieces.

Gray opened his mouth but no words came out, only a strangled choking sound. His eyes filled with tears and he rubbed at them hurriedly.

"Your birthday…? Deliora…?  _What?_ " Natsu asked, still in shock.

Gray looked away again. "It's been so long that you'd think I'd be over it by now," he murmured, his voice cracking slightly. "But I just…I don't know. It had been such a great day and I had had a lot of fun, but then that night the demon came and everything fell apart."

He paused and seemed to consider something before shaking his head slightly. "No, not fell. Everything was torn apart. The buildings, the people, Deliora tore them all to pieces." He finally met Natsu's eyes again, but the dragon slayer wasn't sure if his friend was actually seeing him. "The buildings were crashing down around us, the city was crumbling, but  _God_ , so were the  _people_. It threw them around like rag dolls and ripped them apart, and there was blood  _everywhere_."

Gray's voice broke, but after a second he kept talking. His eyes were glazed over as he remembered that night, and he was quickly spiraling into panicked rambling. Natsu thought that he should probably stop him, but he couldn't make himself do anything besides stare in stunned horror.

"And then it was coming at us. My dad tried to distract it so we could get away, but it–it just ripped a hole in him and tossed him aside, and there was so much blood." Gray pulled his other leg up onto the couch so that he could wrap his arms around both knees as he rocked back and forth, his body trembling. His face twisted in a sickened expression. "And it was all over me too. My mom was screaming. I probably was too…maybe? I don't remember, but I think I probably was. It would make sense, right?"

He was looking straight through Natsu as he babbled. He had unconsciously unwrapped his arms from his legs and was twisting them together in that strange dry-washing motion he had been making that night down on the beach.

"And it just slammed into her and threw her, and her blood was everywhere too. God, their blood was all over me and I could feel it for months. I could feel it everywhere and no matter how much I scrubbed at my skin, I could  _still_ feel it there, burning me."

He let out a shuddering sob, his hands rubbing together vigorously. It caught Natsu's attention once more and his eyes widened as he realized what they were doing. That gesture that had reminded him so much of handwashing… Was Gray trying to wash away the blood that was no longer there? That made Natsu feel sick. Gray wouldn't be able to wash that away, not ever. It wasn't so easy to wash away memories.

"I should've died then too, except a nearby building collapsed on me and I got trapped under the debris and the demon moved on. I was just stuck there lying under the rubble, and I was covered in blood and getting crushed and couldn't breathe very well and everything hurt and I thought I was going to die."

His gaze suddenly focused on Natsu and his eyes filled with tears again.

"And God, I wanted to die."

Natsu stopped breathing and felt his face twist into an even more horrified expression. He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, and Gray's eyes clouded with guilt and pain.

"I'm sorry," the ice mage moaned. "I'm so sorry. But everyone I loved was dead and I had nothing left and I had no reason to live, and I wanted to die. But then Ur and Lyon came out of nowhere and they dug me out and took me in and taught me magic and gave me a second chance. And I loved them, I had some good times with them and considered them a second family, but there was always this small part of me that couldn't forgive Ur because I wanted to die and she had saved me instead."

Gray buried his face in his hands. "Lyon thought that I went after Deliora because I was stupid enough to think that I was actually powerful enough to kill it, but I didn't, not really. I wasn't that stupid. I didn't have a chance and I knew it. I just didn't care.

"Either Deliora or I was going to die, and I didn't care which as long as it was one of us. But she came after me." Gray dropped his hands to stare at Natsu, a horrified guilt shining in his eyes. "Don't you see? That's what makes it so terrible. I was the one who was supposed to die, the one who  _wanted_ to die. Not her. Never her. She didn't want to die, Natsu—I did. But it all went wrong and she gave her life for someone who didn't even want their own.

"And after that I couldn't very well give up like that again, could I? Because she died so that I could live and I couldn't throw that away. That's what made Galuna so bad, because I wasn't supposed to give up like that again after I got her killed, but I did anyway.

"And I used to think–" His voice cracked but he pressed on, his words jagged and broken. "I used to think that it would have been better if she had known that I wanted to die so that she would have known better than to die in my place. But I think that she would have come after me anyway, even if she had known. She would have followed me and died because she wanted me to find a reason to live even if I didn't really want to yet. So now I'm glad that she never figured it out. I'm so, so glad."

Gray hugged himself tightly and started rocking again. Natsu thought he might throw up or start crying or break something, because he couldn't believe what he was hearing and it horrified him. It horrified him that Gray could think like this, feel like this. He had known Gray for years and had never once suspected any of this. Even after Galuna Island, when Gray had been more honest than ever before, Natsu still hadn't realized that all of this was lurking underneath the surface.

And he felt terrible that he had never realized, that he had never been able to help Gray with this. What kind of friend was he?

"You don't–you don't still feel that way…Right?"

Gray looked at him with haunted eyes. "I don't always want to die anymore," he replied dully. "But I don't always want to live either."

That physically hurt to hear, and it felt like Natsu had gotten sucker-punched. All the breath rushed out of him all at once and he could feel tears prickling at his eyes even though he tried to fight them back. This was Gray, the boy he had grown up with, fought with, laughed with, counted as a best friend and brother. And all this time…

"No," he breathed, not fully aware of speaking the word. The tears finally won the fight and began trickling down his cheeks. "No."

Gray's eyes widened slightly and a horrified, guilt-stricken expression spread over his face as tears welled in his own eyes. "Don't cry, Natsu," he pleaded, reaching out to brush the tears off his face. "Please don't cry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, please don't cry."

But what else was Natsu supposed to do? His best friend had just said that he didn't want to live, hadn't wanted to live for years, and Natsu had  _never known._  He had thought that Gray was mostly happy. Yeah, Galuna had cast some doubts on that assumption, but he had thought that things hadn't always been that bad and that they were getting better. But Gray had been hiding things again.

Natsu didn't know if it was out of some misplaced sense of pride and need to appear strong or from a desire to spare Fairy Tail the knowledge and pain. He didn't know and it wasn't his top concern, but there were some things he needed to know right now. He needed Gray to come clean and be completely honest for once, because he couldn't help his friend if he didn't know everything that was wrong. Natsu was years behind schedule in figuring this out and he needed to make up for lost time.

He reached out and grasped Gray's wrist, pulling it away from his face. Gray didn't resist, just stared at Natsu with that horribly guilty expression, his own face streaked with tears.

"Do we not give you enough to live for?" Natsu asked finally, his voice cracking.

Gray's face twisted into an even guiltier look, pain and self-loathing flickering in his eyes. "You do, you do," he said quickly, fresh tears dripping down his face. "Don't think like that—I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm not always like this, I swear I'm not. Fairy Tail is what saved me and helped me get my life back on track after Ur…" He let out a shuddering breath and wiped at his tears with the hand that wasn't being restrained. Natsu silently released his other wrist, and Gray let it fall back down limply.

"I was in a really, really bad place after everything with Ur," he continued, his voice low. "And I didn't want a reason to live. But you all just took me in and gave me a new home, and even though you didn't have any idea how badly I was screwed up, you helped so much. I tried to give something back, to help you all the way you helped me, but there's really no way. You did so much, more than you'll ever know, and I can't repay that."

Natsu opened his mouth to disagree—Gray had always been there for everyone trying to help them, and had helped Natsu himself feel better on several occasions after Lisanna died or on the days he was missing Igneel the most—but the ice mage continued on.

"It's not always so bad, really. I have a lot of fun and good times with you all, and I  _am_ happy sometimes. You all make me feel good. It's only so bad now because it's an anniversary, and it's worse because seeing Deliora again on Galuna brought up a lot of bad memories. I'm getting better, I really am, but it's just going to take a little time. Tomorrow won't be so bad. It's only for today."

But it wasn't only for today and Natsu knew it. Maybe today was particularly bad because of what it meant to Gray, but this kind of intense grief and pain wouldn't just magically disappear tomorrow. And as far as Natsu could tell, Gray had done this  _every year_. He had grieved every year, and Natsu had never known, had never helped.

"God, I've been such a terrible friend," he whispered.

Gray's reaction was immediate, and Natsu wished he could take the words back. The ice mage drew back sharply and made a grief-stricken moaning sound in the back of his throat as his tears intensified.

"You haven't," he choked out, his voice thick with tears. "You haven't. You've always been there. Especially after Galuna, when I needed you. I needed you and you were there. Even though I tried to make you leave me alone, you were so damn stubborn and I needed that. Our friendship isn't a lie, Natsu. All the good times we've had, the closeness we've shared, it's not a lie. I'm sorry I made you feel like it was.

"I didn't want you to know. I didn't want you to feel bad. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please don't feel like that. You're my best friend and you've done so much. You're not terrible, not… God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm–"

"Stop," Natsu rasped.

Gray broke off immediately and stared at him with that horrible, broken expression. Natsu leaned forward to rest his forehead against Gray's, closing his eyes and letting out a breath.

"Please," he breathed, "please stop apologizing."

Because if there was anything worse than listening to Gray talk about how much he hurt, it was listening to him apologize over and over again for things he shouldn't have to be sorry for. Natsu didn't know how to take away the guilt, but God, he wished he did.

"I'm sor–" Gray started automatically, before forcing himself to stop. Natsu opened his eyes. Gray's eyes were open as well, brimming with unshed tears. "Okay," he said instead, his voice wavering. "I'll try."

Natsu leaned back again, keeping his eyes fixed on his friend. "Why didn't you just say something? All these years we've been throwing parties and celebrating, and you've just been…this? This is what you've been doing all this time? We're just having a good time while you're grieving, and we didn't know? You should have just told us. We didn't know. We didn't…"

Gray wrapped his arms around himself and looked away, the tears in his eyes shimmering in the faint streetlight streaming through the window.

"I like the celebrations," he said quietly. "Sometimes it's hard because I don't always feel like celebrating, but I like to see everyone having a good time. It makes me feel better to see you all happy. That's one of the reasons I didn't say anything, because I'd rather see you celebrating and laughing than feeling bad for me and trying to figure out what you're supposed to do to help. I just need to see the people I love be happy. My parents and Ur are dead and gone, but you all are still here and I want to see you happy. I really just…I don't want to see you sad because of me."

"Don't you get it?" Natsu asked, pulling his own legs up onto the couch so that he could wrap his arms around his knees. "We care about you too and we'd rather celebrate with you when you're happy and mourn with you when you're sad. We want to be there in the good times  _and_ the bad ones.

"Besides, you've always looked out for us when we were sad. Why can't we do the same for you? You know, every year around the time Igneel left, you always find a way to help me feel better. You never come out and say that's what you're doing, but I know that's what it is. Why can't I do that for you? Although…" He sighed and felt guilt gnaw at him. "I guess that's kind of my fault too. I should have noticed that something was wrong. You're my best friend, and I never even really noticed."

Gray finally looked back over at him, his lips quirking into a sad half-smile. "You know, I didn't really think much of you when you first joined the guild," he said softly. Natsu frowned at the strange tangent, but held his tongue. "So I didn't care that much about what was going on with you. I know you talked about Igneel and the date of his disappearance, but I didn't really pay attention and I didn't remember the date. But you know, even though I didn't know the date, I figured it out anyway."

Natsu blinked at him in confusion. "What?"

"Once we started becoming friends, I started paying more attention and noticed some things about you. And one of the things I noticed was that around one particular day each year, you would start getting sad. You weren't always very demonstrative about it, but you didn't really hide it either so I figured it out and then I couldn't very well just leave you alone, could I?"

Natsu grimaced faintly. "I should have been able to do the same thing for you."

"No, the situations are different," Gray disagreed, shaking his head. "It's not your fault. I already knew that Igneel had disappeared and that you were unhappy about it. And even though you tried not to be really obvious about being sad around the date of his disappearance, you didn't exactly hide it either. I had something to work with there.

"But with me… Well, you didn't know anything about my parents or Ur, and I didn't give you any clues that anything was wrong. You didn't even know that there was a problem in the first place, so how could you figure out when my worst days were? Besides, I hid my past and my grief pretty damn well, if I do say so myself. I didn't want anyone to know about it, so I was careful not to leave any clues. I didn't give you a chance to help. That's my fault, not yours."

"Not everything is always your fault, you know," Natsu replied, subdued. "Okay, you made it really hard for anyone to figure out what was wrong, but we've also known you for years. I'm not  _completely_  hopeless—I can sometimes tell when you aren't doing well, but I had no idea that it was this bad. I wish I did. I just…I wish I could do something to help."

Gray's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Do something to help?" he repeated with a hint of disbelief. "What do you think you're doing right now? What do you think you were doing on Galuna when you stopped me from using iced shell twice? When you tracked me down afterwards and harassed me until I told you what was bothering me? When you agreed to go on an impromptu road trip with me? When you followed me out into an unfamiliar city in the middle of the night even when I told you not to, and listened to me talk down on the beach? When you followed me home tonight because of something you remembered I said months ago, and refused to back down even when I begged you to leave?"

He looked down, eyes slightly narrowed. "Don't discount that. You know…For me, one of the hardest parts of all those conversations we had since Galuna was that I would look at you and you'd always look so sad and worried. I didn't want that, Natsu. Maybe that's part of the reason I didn't just tell you everything from the beginning. It's like I told you—when I'm hurting and having a hard time, I'd rather see everyone else happy.

"It's hard seeing you like this, especially since I'm used to your stupid carefree side. I've hurt a lot of people in my life, Natsu, and I don't like to have any more of it on my conscience if I can help it. I don't want you to hurt because of me."

They sat in silence for several long minutes, each lost in their own thoughts as they stared blankly into the darkness. Natsu still felt terrible, but he understood where Gray was coming from. He hated to see his friends in pain too, so he could understand that. At the same time, there was no way he  _couldn't_ feel bad about all this. Seeing Gray like this already hurt enough, and hearing what his friend had to say wasn't helping. But still, he owed it to Gray to at least try.

"Gray," he said finally, breaking the heavy silence. "Tell me about them."

Gray let out his breath in a hiss and eyed Natsu warily, his arms tightening around himself. "What?"

"Your parents, Ur, tell me about them," Natsu repeated, meeting his friend's eyes steadily. "You say that when you're upset you want to see the people you care about be happy, right? Shouldn't you do the same for the ones who are gone? Remember them when they were happy—not what it was like when they died or how you felt about it, but what it was like when you were all happy together? Tell me about that."

Gray stared at him unblinkingly, and Natsu began to wonder if he had made a mistake. He knew that it would hurt Gray to think of the past and remember what he had lost. But still, he thought that Gray needed to remember, if only to be reminded that things hadn't always been this bad and wouldn't always be this bad in the future.

Sighing heavily, Gray let his gaze drifted away as he gathered his thoughts. Then he began talking. He told Natsu about his hometown and its people. He talked about his childhood friends and the mischief they had gotten into. He talked about his mother and father, about the things he remembered about them the best—his mother's warm smile and sparkling eyes, his father's rumbling laugh and constant teasing. He talked about his favorite memories—curling up inside by the fireplace with his parents after a long day playing in the snow, listening to his mother sing him lullabies when he couldn't sleep, following his father around like a worshipful puppy in his desperation to be just like him.

Then he talked about Ur and Lyon. He talked about how they had taken him in and set themselves up as a second family. Natsu couldn't help but laugh when Gray described how shocked he was the first time Ur had taken him out training and had stripped her clothes off and told him to do the same. The dragon slayer immediately stopped himself, worried that his amusement was inappropriate, but Gray had just shrugged and continued talking, a faint half-smile playing at the edges of his lips. He told Natsu about how much trouble Ur had had trying to keep him and Lyon in line, and related countless stories about the fights and mischief the two boys had gotten into. He talked about their training, and how amazing and magical it was to learn ice molding.

He talked for hours, his eyes unfocused as he dredged up memory after memory. Even when his voice started becoming hoarse, he kept right on going, not even seeming to notice.

Natsu had curled up into a more comfortable position on the couch and was watching him hungrily. These were stories he had never been privy to before, stories he had had no part in and Gray had never felt the need to tell him. This was the Gray that Natsu had only half known—the good and the bad, the happy and the sad. Here in this moment, Natsu felt closer to his friend than he ever had before. He felt guilty that he was actually almost enjoying this part of the experience even though it had stemmed from something unbearably dark and painful. Yes, it hurt and the pain was there, but Natsu couldn't fully regret it either because he thought that this was probably what he and Gray needed.

He kept a careful eye on Gray all the same, looking for any sign that he was about to break down again. Nostalgia and grief still warred on his face, but sometimes his lips would curl into a wistful smile as he spoke fondly of the people and places of his past. Occasionally his eyes would light up for a moment as he recalled something particularly heartwarming or humorous, and he had even chuckled a little once or twice.

But then his voice suddenly wavered and died out.

It took Natsu a moment to adjust to the sudden silence after having listened to the stories for so long, but then he peered at his friend worriedly. Gray had bent his head so that his dark hair had fallen into his face and obscured it from view. His shoulders hunched a little and he hugged his knees closer to chest.

"Gray?" Natsu asked cautiously, his voice sounding too loud in the silence even though he kept it soft.

Gray gave no sign that he had heard for several long seconds, but then he slowly lifted his head and looked over at Natsu. His face was streaked with tears, and a mixture of guilt and loneliness and anguish raged behind his dark eyes. Natsu sucked in a breath and opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't find the right words to say. The two friends stared at each other in the darkness for a full minute before Gray finally opened his mouth.

"I miss them," he whispered, his voice broken and jagged at the edges.

"Gray…"

"Maybe I don't have the right." Something about his voice was wrong. Natsu couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but there was something in the intonation and inflection that sounded too broken and flat to be Gray. "But I still miss them anyway."

Natsu struggled to find his voice. "Of course you have the right to miss them," he said past the lump in his throat. "You loved them and they're gone. Of course you miss them."

Gray's gaze turned inwards, and even though his eyes were still on Natsu, they weren't seeing him.

"Yes, I loved them," he said, bitterness creeping into his voice. "I loved them and I killed them."

Natsu's heart twisted. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised that everything still boiled down to Gray blaming himself for everything, but he still couldn't accept it.

"Gray, it's not–"

"Don't!" Gray interrupted harshly, his eyes abruptly snapping back to Natsu's face with a burning intensity that made the dragon slayer unconsciously lean back. "Don't tell me that it's not my fault. I don't want to hear that. I don't need to hear that right now."

The anger and bitterness slowly drained away from Gray, leaving him to slump over as if the only thing supporting him had been cut. Only that aching sadness was left, and it hurt Natsu to see that.

For his part, the dragon slayer desperately tried to come up with something to say. He still didn't think that Gray should keep blaming himself for the deaths of his family or master, but he realized that telling him that right now wasn't going to get through to him. And to be honest, Natsu could almost see why. People kept telling Gray that it wasn't his fault, but if he still blamed himself and wanted to hang on to that guilt and pain then he wouldn't want to hear them contradict him. He didn't want to let go of the guilt because he still didn't know how to forgive himself for the things he had done.

But there had to be  _something_ that Natsu could say, if only he could figure out what it was. He had never been good at talking or saying the right thing at the right time, but he needed to be able to do it right now. He didn't know what it was that Gray needed to hear, but he couldn't just give up and shrug it off and walk away this time. This time it was too important, so he would have to try.

He opened his mouth, but for a long moment there was still only silence, because he didn't know what he needed to say. And then the words suddenly began pouring out.

"I see you, Gray Fullbuster."

Gray blinked at him in helpless bewilderment. "What?"

Natsu leaned forward, his eyes blazing. " _I see you_. I see who you were and who you are. I see the things you've done and the mistakes you've made. I see the guilt and the pain and the fear. I see the people you've hurt, the lives you've inadvertently taken, the bad choices you've made, the times you've given up. I see what you did to your parents and Ur and Lyon. I see that dark part of your soul that you try to keep hidden from the world, the part that hates and rages and fears and hurts. I see it all."

Gray flinched back, his hair falling into his face again as he dropped his head. He let out a strangled sob, and it almost broke Natsu's heart. The dragon slayer reached out and gently tilted Gray's face up again, so that they were staring into each other's eyes once more.

"But that isn't all I see," Natsu continued quietly, his voice softening. "I see all the things you've done for us over the years, the ways you've helped us when you should have been helping yourself. I see the warmth and strength and joy. I see the people you've helped, the lives you've saved, the good choices you've made, the times you fought to the bitter end. I see what you did  _for_  your parents and Ur and Lyon. I see that part of your soul that you sometimes forget to take into consideration, the part that loves and laughs and comforts."

Another solitary tear worked its way free and slipped down Gray's cheek, leaving a glistening trail in its wake. Natsu wiped it away with his thumb and looked at his friend sadly.

"I see you, Gray. I see the good and the bad, and even though I can see all of the terrible things you've gone through and done, I can't ignore the good. That's why you're still my best friend. We all still love you Gray, no matter what it is you've done, because you still deserve to be loved even after all your mistakes.

"You sometimes only see the bad, the others sometimes only see the good, but me? I see  _you_. I see you and I'm still here, because the person you are—the good  _and_ the bad—is someone I care about and who I think deserves to be happy. You don't want me to tell you that all this isn't your fault? Fine. But still, even if it  _was_ your fault, I would still love you anyway."

They watched each other unblinkingly for a moment, and then Gray began crying in earnest, his body shaking in silent sobs. Natsu's first thought was that his little speech must have sounded better in his head and maybe it should have stayed there.

"I screwed up bad, Natsu," Gray sobbed. "And I'll screw up again. I'll be annoying and infuriating and drive you crazy. I'll taunt you and fight you and make fun of you. I'll be annoying as hell and at the end of the day I'll tell you to go away and stop bothering me.

"But God, don't leave," he continued, his voice cracking. "Please don't leave."

Natsu's own eyes filled with tears and he leaned forward to hug Gray as tightly as he could. "I'm not going anywhere," he said fiercely. "I'm never leaving."

He felt Gray's arms wrap around him in turn as the ice mage let his head drop against his shoulder. Gray's sobs intensified, his tears seeping into the fabric of Natsu's shirt, and Natsu held him close, tears leaking out of his own eyes as well.

They sat like that for several minutes before Gray drew back. Natsu wasn't sure what had prompted him to move at first, until his friend's eyes immediately zeroed in on his face.

"Don't cry," he whispered.

Natsu laughed breathlessly and rubbed at his face to get rid of the tears. He knew that Gray didn't want to see him upset, but that was just what friends did. When Gray smiled, Natsu would smile. When Gray laughed, Natsu would laugh. When Gray cried, Natsu would cry.

That's how friends worked and it was how Gray and Natsu had operated for years, although celebrating together had been much more common than mourning together. If Gray didn't want Natsu to be sad, then Gray himself couldn't be sad. Natsu wasn't naïve enough to think that he would be able to magic away the grief, but he could try to ease it a little, for both of them.

He smiled faintly at Gray. Despite himself, one corner of the ice mage's mouth quirked upwards in reply.

"You told me a lot of stories tonight," Natsu said. "Let me tell you some in return."

Gray raised a questioning eyebrow but didn't protest. Instead, he settled back against the couch and watched Natsu with those unblinking eyes as he listened to the dragon slayer's tale.

Natsu told Gray about how he had stumbled across a guild in his search for Igneel and decided to join. He talked about an annoying raven-haired boy with an unfortunate tendency to unconsciously strip at the most awkward times. He talked about how he had built a rivalry and friendship with that boy, about their fights and teasing nicknames. He talked about how that annoying rival would harass him all the time except when he was sad, because somehow he had always been able to tell. He talked about the boy who had always come to seek Natsu out when he was at his loneliest, the boy who sometimes tried to hide how much he cared but was always doing far more to help than he ever let on, the boy who had fought tooth and nail for all of his friends, even Natsu.

The whole time he talked, Gray's eyes remained steady on him. When he finally paused, the ice mage slowly continued on for him, talking about an annoying pink-haired boy with an unfortunate tendency to destroy things and get himself into trouble, who had nonetheless wormed his way into Gray's heart and helped him realize that he could still have friends despite everything he had done and lost. He talked about the boy who had never realized exactly how much Gray was hurting but had always managed to make him feel better anyway, the boy who could be really damn annoying but who would always try to help if he figured out that something was wrong, the boy who had always fought impossible odds and won in order to protect all of his friends, even Gray.

And when their voices and stories finally died out sometime deep in the night, those two boys looked each other in the eye and saw each other more clearly than they ever had before.

"You know," Gray said finally, "I used to think that there were some things that were too broken to fix."

"And now?"

A rueful smile tugged at one corner of Gray's lips as he studied his best friend with a mixture of sadness and fondness. "Now I'm not so sure."

And Natsu smiled, because he thought that he must have managed to say the right thing for once after all. His specialty had always been breaking things, but if he found something important enough then he would move heaven and earth to fix it again.

"You know," he replied, "I used to think that nothing was impossible if I put my mind to it."

Gray snorted softly but played along. "And now?"

"Now I still believe that I'm always right."

"You never did understand the meaning of the word 'impossible'," Gray said, rolling his eyes.

Natsu's grin widened. "Well, doing the impossible was always my other specialty."

Gray smiled faintly and looked away. "You might just be able to do it," he murmured.

That sounded like a challenge. Natsu's eyes glinted with sudden determination. He was always up for a challenge, and this was a challenge that he couldn't afford to lose.

"Watch me," he said with a smirk.

"Yeah, yeah, I see you."

Natsu's smile softened. "And you're not gonna go anywhere?"

"'Course not," Gray mumbled, turning his head away.

Natsu's smile sharpened into an impish smirk once more. "Oh good, that means I get to stay the night."

Gray looked back over sharply, his eyes narrowing. "Planned that out, did you?"

"Planning was never my specialty," Natsu said cheerfully.

Gray shook his head and glanced at the clock on the wall behind the couch. "Not much left of the night to spend, but you're welcome to stay the morning."

"I'll fight you for the bed!"

"Like hell you will. You can have the couch."

"Alright, alright," Natsu conceded, settling back into the cushions.

Gray rose and disappeared from the room, reemerging from a shadowed doorway a few seconds later with a blanket. Walking back over to the couch, he dropped it on top of Natsu unceremoniously. Natsu rolled his eyes and pulled it over himself more snugly, yawning widely as the late hour began catching up to him.

"'Night, Gray."

The ice mage moved back across the room, but paused in the doorway to his bedroom. "Goodnight, Natsu." He glanced back. "It's really late, so just go to sleep. I'll go to sleep on my own without you watching me."

Natsu stared at him blankly for a moment before realizing that he was referencing the fact that the dragon slayer had always made sure he stayed awake until Gray had fallen asleep, back when they had taken their road trip after Galuna. He hadn't realized that Gray had noticed that. He thought that he'd been careful.

"Uh…"

"I'm not  _that_ stupid," Gray replied with a snort. "See you in the morning."

He disappeared into his room, leaving Natsu blinking after him.

Natsu had a few specialties, but following directions had never been one of them. If he stayed awake until his keen dragon hearing could pick up Gray's slow, even breathing in the next room… Well, old habits died hard.

* * *

_One year later_

After the great birthday fiasco of the previous year, Natsu was prepared for anything when Gray's birthday rolled around again. The ice mage had made it very clear that everything they had shared that night would remain strictly between the two of them—something that Natsu fully intended to change one day, although he wouldn't press the issue just yet—so the party was continuing on as usual, despite Natsu's reservations. Nonetheless, Gray seemed to be doing better than last year, though it was sometimes difficult to tell how much of his enthusiasm and cheerfulness was faked and how much was genuine.

Natsu kept one eye on Gray and the other on the clock as the celebration raged on. He waited until mid-afternoon, when he figured Gray had probably had enough, before stalking over to where his friend was talking to Lucy and Erza at one of the tables. They all paused to watch his approach, and a hint of wariness lurked in Gray's eyes as he tried to determine Natsu's intentions.

"Oh, hey Natsu!" Lucy said cheerfully.

"What's up, squinty eyes?" Gray asked more cautiously.

Natsu nodded to Lucy and Erza, but kept his eyes on Gray the whole time, looking for any sign that he was more upset than he was letting on. There was definitely some sadness and pain lingering there. Natsu thought that it wasn't quite as bad as last year, but it was still there.

He nodded to himself and fished some papers out of his pocket. Spreading the five job requests out in a line on the table in front of Gray, he stood back to await his friend's reaction.

"What's this, Natsu?" Erza asked, frowning at the papers in bewilderment.

Natsu shrugged noncommittally, still watching Gray. The ice mage stared at the line of papers for several long moments, his dark eyes slowly traveling over the individual job requests. Then he looked up at Natsu expressionlessly.

"Well?" Natsu asked. "What do you say?"

A lazy smirk slowly spread over Gray's face.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That escalated quickly...Sorry guys, ha ha. The birthday thing isn't something I usually add into my headcanon, but it's great for angst purposes, as long as there's a reason for it.


	3. Promises to Break and Keep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found something that was briefly touched on but not properly addressed in the second part and had another piece I wanted to write that would fit into this verse nicely, so I ended up writing this. It's kind of long and it's a little bit of a roller coaster, but I think it wraps up this verse well.
> 
> Also, this actually starts in Erza's POV for reasons you'll probably be able to guess pretty quickly, but it switches back to Natsu's POV right away and stays there. This piece requires a little creativity with the timeline, but not a lot. It takes place after Avatar but before FT finds out what happened to Makarov, so it just requires a couple weeks to be inserted between those two points.

"Well, I guess we might as well call it a day," Erza said with a sigh as she looked around at their half-built guild.

After Fairy Tail had been reformed, they had needed a new guild hall since their last one had been destroyed in the fight with Tartaros. The past week had been spent rebuilding, although they still continued sending out tentative feelers in an attempt to find out what had happened to their master and where he might be now. Until Makarov was found Erza was nominally in charge, and she didn't intend to let anyone slack off of the construction. Still, she decided that they should probably just take a half day today since they'd been working so hard recently. Everyone could use a break.

"Already?" Lucy asked in surprise, letting the board she was carrying rest on the ground. "It's still so early. We still have a few hours of daylight left."

"Yes, but with how hard we've all been working, we might as well take a break." Erza's gaze sharpened. "Mind you, we'll be right back to work tomorrow, so enjoy it while it lasts."

"Yes!" Natsu whooped, immediately dropping all the materials he had been holding. Erza winced as they crashed to the ground. "Freedom!"

Everyone else began gratefully abandoning their respective tasks, although thankfully with more care than Natsu had.

"Lu-chan!" Levy said brightly, turning to Lucy with a wide smile. "Let's go sit down and you can tell me more about your time at the  _Weekly Sorcerer_. I read all of your articles!"

Lucy laughed and headed over to sit with Levy, and everyone else began drifting into groups as well, taking this time to continue reconnecting with old friends and to talk about what they had been up to for the past year. Erza smiled as she watched them. It really was nice seeing everyone together again after all this time.

"Hey, ice block! Let's fight!"

Erza whipped around to tell Natsu in no uncertain terms that he would  _not_ be starting a fight that would in all likelihood result in the destruction of everything they had managed to rebuild so far, but paused when she saw Gray. The ice mage had been making a teasing comment to Lucy and Levy, his eyes sparkling with mirth, but his amusement faded when Natsu addressed him. The look he gave Natsu wasn't hostile, exactly, but it lacked the warmth he had been showing to the others.

"Not now, Natsu," he said, his voice tinged with cool politeness. "I'm actually planning on heading home."

"But–"

"I'll see you tomorrow, everyone!" Gray said, talking right over Natsu's protest. His easy smile had returned as he waved goodbye to everyone, but his eyes seemed to pass right over Natsu. Then he turned on his heel and began walking away.

"Gray–"

Gray glanced back and briefly met the dragon slayer's gaze. "I'll see you tomorrow, Natsu."

And then he was gone, heading into the street and quickly disappearing from view as he merged into the crowd of pedestrians there. Natsu stared after him forlornly.

"Wow, what did you do to him?" Cana asked, her voice slightly slurred since she had already managed to consume a fair amount of alcohol in the short time since Erza had called for a break. "He doesn't seem happy with you."

Natsu scowled and turned back to face them. "I don't know."

"Oh really?" Gajeel asked, raising an eyebrow. "He seems to be getting along with you better than ever before." He rolled his eyes. "You haven't gotten into a fight big enough to undo all our work on the guild yet, anyway."

"Yeah, that's the problem," Natsu muttered. "He hasn't wanted to fight me in days." He glanced back at where Gray had disappeared a few moments before. "He hasn't called me 'flame brain' since the mess with Avatar," he added mournfully.

Erza almost wanted to laugh because not fighting or being insulted seemed like silly reasons to be worried, but she understood what Natsu meant. She hadn't noticed anything off with how Gray was treating Natsu at first because the changes were subtle, but something was definitely up. The two of them had gotten pretty close before Tartaros—if Erza had to guess, she would say that their relationship had started shifting not too long after Lucy had joined the guild—and although she wasn't privy to the workings of their friendship, she had noticed that they had become more open with each other.

Oh, the fighting and teasing banter was still there, but she could read the change in their eyes, and they had even started going out on missions together, just the two of them. She liked to call it their 'bonding time', although she didn't know the true purpose. And that was what puzzled her about this sudden shift in Gray's attitude, because he and Natsu had been getting along really well until now.

"He seemed a little withdrawn after Avatar," Erza said, "but he was back to normal within a couple days. Except with you, Natsu. I thought that maybe he was just taking a little while to adjust after being stuck with Avatar, because I know that being in a dark guild must have been stressful, but he seems to have recovered quickly from that."

"He can't possibly be that upset that I ruined his cover," Natsu muttered, grimacing again.

"I was there too," Lucy pointed out. "I screwed up his mission as much as you did, but he's still plenty nice to me."

"Yeah, he's being plenty nice to everyone but me," Natsu growled. He paused. "Actually, the problem is that he's being too damn nice to me too. He won't fight me or insult me, and he's just too polite. Just like…really stiff and formal and polite. It's weird. Usually when he's angry at me he has no problem yelling and starting a fight, but now it's like he's pretending that he's not really mad, except that he also isn't trying to hide the fact that he doesn't want anything to do with me. It's like he's talking to a goddamn stranger." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "He's shutting me out again, is what he's doing. I worked too damn hard to get him to open up. There's no way he's going to just shut down on me again after all that."

Erza studied him thoughtfully. She wasn't sure exactly what this 'opening up' consisted of, but then again Gray and Natsu had always had a rather unconventional friendship that was somewhat baffling to outsiders. She did, however, understand exactly what Natsu meant about the rest of it.

Gray had seemed just a little out of it when he had returned from his stint with Avatar, and she imagined that having to interact with a dark guild had been stressful for him. She didn't know exactly what had gone on during that period, because he hadn't given her many extraneous details outside of the information important to the mission. Whenever she had asked if he was okay or needed to abort the mission, he had just said that things were going fine and that was the end of it. So Erza didn't know what he had experienced, but she could understand if it was hard for him to adjust to normal guild life again afterward.

But at the same time, he had quickly regained his normal energy and cheerfulness, and was acting normally towards everyone but Natsu. He had started treating the dragon slayer with something of the over-politeness and formalness usually reserved for strangers or acquaintances, with just a touch of coldness. Gray usually faced his problems head-on and wasn't afraid of bringing up issues or starting conflicts if necessary, especially when Natsu was involved. Those two would fight like cats and dogs but still be best friends at the end of the day. They weren't fighting now, but they were farther apart than they had ever been.

Erza couldn't say for sure what the problem was, but she did agree that Gray was shutting Natsu out. If things kept going like this then the problem would never be solved, because Gray would never bring it up and the two friends would never work things out. If Gray wasn't going to go to Natsu, then Natsu would have to go to Gray.

"Go talk to him," she told the dragon slayer.

She prepared to override the inevitable protest—Gray and Natsu always insisted that they didn't  _talk_ to each other, although she thought that was a half-truth at best—but Natsu just nodded slowly.

"Yeah," he said, his voice subdued. "I'd better go see what's up."

Erza blinked at him for a moment, surprised by his easy acquiescence, but then smiled a little. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

Natsu hurried out the door, so focused on the task at hand that he barely spared them another glance. Erza just sighed and fervently hoped that those two would come to some sort of understanding already. Drifting over to where Lucy and Levy were swapping stories about their time outside the guild, she easily joined in the conversation.

They had only been chatting for a few minutes when a panicked man came running in, his eyes darting about frantically. Erza frowned slightly at the strange sight and stood up.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. "Can we help you?"

He focused his agitated gaze on her. "Do you have a fire mage and an ice mage in your guild?"

Erza's frown deepened and she steeled herself for the worst. "Yes," she replied. "What did they do now?"

"They're fighting in the middle of the street," he said anxiously, wringing his hands together. "Everyone's already evacuated the area to avoid getting hit by stray magic, but you should go stop them from killing each other."

Erza cursed under her breath, and behind her, a few other guild members had some choice words to say as well. She had told Natsu to _talk_ to Gray, not pick a fight. She wanted to believe that it was a good thing since it was a step back towards normalcy, but given how things had been going recently, this didn't seem like one of their normal fights.

"We'll go take care of it right now," Erza assured the man. "We're very sorry for the trouble they've caused."

She quickly headed for the door, pausing briefly to ascertain where the two troublemakers must be—which wasn't as difficult as might be expected, since she could quite clearly see some stray flames leaping into the sky a few streets away—and started running down the street towards the conflict. Lucy quickly caught up and ran by her side, and she was vaguely aware that at least a few other guild members were following as well. Apparently she wasn't the only one who was concerned about the way things were going with Natsu and Gray.

And with that, Fairy Tail went on a mission to ensure the friendship and well-being of two of its most important members.

* * *

Natsu picked up Gray's scent without much trouble, despite the other pedestrians' scents mingling with it. Following his nose, he hurried down the street, eager to catch up to his friend. He didn't know what was up with Gray, but it was high time that they figured this out already.

He had been so excited to see Gray after a year of being apart, but after they had wrapped up the mess with Avatar, the ice mage had withdrawn and shown none of the same enthusiasm at seeing Natsu again. Natsu didn't get it. The two of them had always been great friends, and after Galuna they had been closer than ever. Gray had finally opened up to Natsu and they had reached a mutual understanding. They had even continued going on jobs together from time to time, just the two of them. They could usually tell when the other was upset, and one or the other would suggest another road trip. They didn't always talk as much as they had in the wake of Galuna and Gray's birthday, but they had always been there for each other.

And suddenly that had all changed.

Gray wasn't being hostile, wasn't being rude or disrespectful or angry, but he was so  _cold_. With everyone else he was the same Gray as before, but with Natsu he had become distant. It wasn't so much that he had cut off their friendship, but more like he had taken a step back. A  _huge_  step back. What had happened after Galuna Island had shifted the boundaries of their friendship and brought them closer together. Now Gray was firmly retracting that progress, returning the boundaries to where they had been before. Actually, Natsu thought that the boundaries were even more restrictive than they had been.

What bothered him was that Gray wasn't necessarily trying to cut him out entirely or be overly unfriendly, but was just restricting their friendship to a pale reflection of what it had once been. It was like Gray was saying that they could still be acquaintances but not best friends anymore, and Natsu didn't want that. He had gotten too damn close to Gray to back out now.

The other thing that worried Natsu was that Gray hadn't actually come out and said anything about any of this. His behavior was anything but normal, but he had given no direct acknowledgment that anything had changed. Even before the two of them had gotten close enough to share their inner feelings, neither of them had had a problem pointing out when there was an issue. If Gray was mad at Natsu then he would just yell and pick a fight, and they'd work things out that way. He had never before been so mad that he had completely ignored the problem and pretended like nothing was wrong, even as he pushed Natsu out of his life. That suggested that either he was seriously angry or something had happened to make him withdraw. Or both.

Natsu didn't know what the problem was, but he wanted his friend back right now. At this point he thought that he would do almost anything to make that happen, because he couldn't stand this terrible feeling of loss anymore. He didn't know what he had done wrong, but he'd do whatever it took to fix it.

He turned a corner and spotted Gray walking slowly down the street, his hands jammed in his pockets as he stared moodily at the ground. When Gray walked like that, it usually meant that something was bothering him.

"Hey! Ice princess!"

Gray's head snapped up and he watched warily as Natsu bounded over. After annoyance and something unreadable briefly flashed across his face, he smoothed out his expression and looked at Natsu with polite indifference.

"What is it, Natsu?"

Natsu winced. Was it too much to ask for Gray to just call him 'flame brain' or 'squinty eyes', even once more?

"We need to talk," he said firmly.

Gray arched an eyebrow. Then he shrugged, turned, and started walking leisurely down the street again.

"Talk?" he asked with a faintly derisive air. "We don't talk."

Natsu scowled and took a few quick steps forward to catch up with Gray, before slowing down to match his friend's pace. "That's a lie and you know it."

Maybe they didn't always talk a lot about their feelings and such, but they would talk to each other if something important enough came up. Galuna Island and Gray's birthdays were proof enough of that.

"Maybe in the past that would be true," Gray said with a sigh. His voice was still indifferent, but for a split second Natsu thought that he could detect a faint undercurrent of wistfulness. "But now? Now we don't talk."

And that was Natsu's fault how, exactly? Gray was the one who was shutting down the lines of communication. The dragon slayer growled in frustration.

"But  _why_?" he demanded. "What did I do that was so bad?"

"Nothing, Natsu," Gray said tiredly. "You did nothing."

Which seemed like an odd way of saying it, but if Natsu hadn't done anything wrong then why was Gray shutting down on him?

"Why are you so mad at me then?" he asked, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice.

"Who said anything about being mad?"

"Well certainly not  _you_!" Natsu burst out, grabbing Gray's arm and forcing him to a stop. The ice mage looked briefly startled, before his face closed off again. "You keep acting like everything is okay, like nothing has changed, but something is definitely wrong. Why won't you just tell me what's wrong?"

The two mages stared at each other, Gray impassive and Natsu trying to keep his raw desperation out of his face. Then Gray skillfully twisted away from Natsu and shook off his hand. Returning his own hands to his pockets, he turned away and began walking down the street again.

"Why would anything be wrong?"

Natsu stared after him, hands hanging uselessly at his sides. Gray had just dismissed him like it with nothing. He didn't want to talk, didn't want to work things out. But Natsu  _did_. He did.

"Don't walk away from me!" he called after his friend, half angry and half desperate. He couldn't help but feel that if he let Gray walk away now, the ice mage would never really come back. Natsu wasn't ready to lose his best friend.

But Gray didn't even pause. "Why not?" he questioned softly, his voice almost lost in the everyday noise of the streets. "You walked away first."

Natsu didn't know what that meant, didn't know what to make of the undercurrent of bitterness in Gray's voice, but he couldn't just accept this. He had to stop Gray, figure out how to work things out, but Gray just kept right on walking. Natsu needed a way to make him turn back around.

A flaming fist to the face should do quite nicely.

Gray sensed the attack a moment before Natsu's fist connected with his head, instinctively turning and twisting out of the way.

"What the hell?" he griped.

Natsu swung again and Gray simply swayed to the side to avoid his fist once more. And again and again, Gray just dodged the attacks, backing up slowly and watching Natsu with a guarded expression. The dragon slayer growled. Usually Gray would be fighting back and they would have a brawl. Now he wouldn't even deign to play along.

"When you're mad at me, you fight," Natsu snarled, narrowly missing Gray's face as he swung wildly with a flame-covered fist. "You don't walk away. You don't just stand there like I'm not worth the effort. You  _fight_."

Gray's eyes darkened and the anger he had been hiding flashed to the surface.

"Fight?" he asked, grabbing Natsu's fist as it hurtled towards his face. He twisted it sharply, making the dragon slayer hiss in pain and hurriedly shake him off. "You want me to fight? Fine then, let's fight."

Gray's magic flared up in response to his anger and he swung at Natsu viciously. Natsu wanted to think that this was a good thing, that it was better now that Gray wasn't trying to pretend that everything was normal, but he also wasn't sure if this had been his smartest idea.

He backed away from Gray's ferocious hail of attacks, wondering if maybe he should find a way to defuse the situation now. But then Gray's fist connected with his nose and all bets were off. Natsu growled in pain and anger and began fighting back. Soon the fight had escalated from a mostly straight-up fistfight to an all-out magical attack, with flames and ice flying everywhere. Natsu was vaguely aware of bystanders' panicked cries as they hurried to flee the scene, but he was too focused on Gray to care.

"Why won't you just tell me what's wrong?" he hissed, dodging a blast of ice and responding with a burst of fire that Gray neatly avoided.

Gray's eyes narrowed further and he sent more ice at Natsu. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Yeah, I got that, thanks," Natsu retorted sarcastically. "But how am I supposed to fix things if I don't even know what I did wrong?"

"Maybe this doesn't need to be fixed," Gray snarled.

That gave Natsu pause and he nearly got an icy fist to his face for his trouble. He quickly dodged and gave Gray a hurt look. "You don't mean that."

Gray hesitated for a split second, something indecipherable flashing across his face. For a moment, the fight seemed to drain out of him. "I don't know what I mean right now," he said quietly.

But the moment passed quickly because Natsu's fire was already on its way and Gray had to dance out of the way. When he looked back at the dragon slayer, his face was set and cold again.

"Why are you so mad?" Natsu demanded again, his desperate frustration shining through.

"Who the hell cares?" Gray shot back, dodging another attack.

" _I_ care!" Natsu burst out in frustration. "Why don't you see that I care?"

"Well you picked a great time to start caring again now."

"What the fuck is that even supposed to mean? I've always cared!"

"Oh really? You really have some way of showing it."

Something inside Natsu snapped.  _"Why the hell are you so mad?"_  he yelled.

Fury flared in Gray's eyes and Natsu could see the exact moment that something snapped inside him as well, the exact moment when Gray finally lost control and couldn't stop the words from pouring out.

"Because I needed you!" he shouted back. Natsu's eyes widened slightly, and he was caught off guard when Gray's fist slammed into his stomach and sent him flying backwards. "I needed you and you weren't here!"

"Gray…" Natsu breathed, still shocked by the sudden outburst.

He looked up from where he was sprawled on the ground. Gray was advancing on him, eyes blazing and fists clenched, but his magic had died away and he didn't move to hit Natsu again. Instead, he stopped a couple feet in front of the dragon slayer and looked down at him with furious eyes.

"I know you had your own issues to deal with, but a lot of stupid shit happened to me too, you know," he hissed, staring Natsu down. "You promised not to leave. I fucking begged you not to leave. But you left and Fairy Tail disbanded and I had to deal with it all on my own. The aftereffects of Memento Mori, everything with Avatar, my father…"

He trailed off and averted his gaze, his fists slowly unclenching to hang limply by his sides. A sudden fear twisted at Natsu's insides.

"What?" he demanded anxiously. "Did something happen with Memento Mori?" Gray had taken that curse. Gray had taken the curse to save Natsu, but he had seemed alright afterwards. Had Natsu missed something? "And what about your father? Your father is…"  _…dead._

Gray closed his eyes for a moment and let out a slow breath. He didn't much look like he wanted to fight anymore. He just looked drained and empty, and a hint of sadness lingered in his eyes when he opened them again.

"It's not important," he said wearily. "It doesn't matter anymore."

He turned away and Natsu hurriedly scrambled to his feet and grabbed his arm again, because there was no way in hell he was going to let Gray just walk away after making a statement like that. Gray let out an irritated sigh and shook him off, but he turned back to face Natsu anyway.

"It's obviously important to you," Natsu countered, "and it definitely matters to me. Don't lie to me, Gray. I don't think you're okay."

Gray laughed harshly. "Oh really?" he asked sarcastically, bitterness creeping back into his voice. "What gave it away?"

Natsu swallowed hard and looked away. "Look, you're right. I wasn't here and I obviously should have been. I'm sorry, okay? I really am. And you have a right to be angry, but please…" His voice wavered slightly and he looked up at Gray with damp eyes. "Please don't shut me out again. You're hurting yourself by pretending that you're okay. Tell me, Gray. We have a lot of catching up to do. Tell me what happened."

He was almost begging at this point, desperate to get Gray to confide in him once more and acknowledge the importance of their friendship, but he tried to keep the pleading note out of his voice. Gray evidently picked up on it anyway, because his bitter irritation drained away and he just looked tired again. Even now, even when he was angry, he couldn't take pleasure in the sight of one of his friends hurting.

"It was over a year ago. I've had time to adjust. It's not such a big deal anymore."

But apparently he was still angry enough to not want to open up and be honest, because that was a goddamn lie if ever there was one.

"Deliora killed your parents and Ur over  _ten_  years ago and it's still a big deal," Natsu said. "It's okay to still be upset over something that happened a long time ago."

Pain twisted Gray's features at that, and Natsu recognized it. Looking at Gray's face, he could see all the old pain written there, but there was a new pain as well. Natsu didn't know what that new pain might be, but he'd be damned if he didn't figure it out.

Gray opened his mouth, but no reply was forthcoming. He just stared at Natsu for a moment and then slowly closed his mouth, shaking his head helplessly. Natsu suddenly realized that despite whatever was holding him back, Gray wanted to talk. He wanted to let Natsu back in and regain the closeness they had once had. But he also didn't seem to know exactly how to go about it, and Natsu had the sinking feeling that he knew why.

They had talked of fear once or twice, and Natsu knew a thing or two about Gray's fears. Gray had once told him that one of the reasons he had originally tried to distance himself from Fairy Tail's members was because he had been scared that if he cared about them too much, he would end up getting hurt again.

And wasn't that exactly what Gray was doing now? He had come to rely on Natsu, but Natsu had left when Gray needed him the most. And that would have hurt. So Gray had blocked him out again so that the next time something happened, he wouldn't need his help and wouldn't run the risk of being let down again. Then again, Natsu could already tell that it wasn't working so well, because Gray hadn't been lying when he said that he wasn't any good at not caring.

"I screwed up," Natsu said quietly. "I left when I should have stayed. But I'm here now, okay? I'm here. You're still my best friend. I still want to help. Please, Gray. Please let me help."

Gray wavered for a few moments longer, but then he met Natsu's eyes and whatever he saw there seemed to convince him to give in.

"I don't–I don't even know where to start," he said miserably.

That didn't sound like an encouraging way to begin, and Natsu was getting the feeling that a lot of stuff had happened to Gray since Tartaros, stuff that Natsu didn't know about.

"Well, what did you mean about Memento Mori?" he asked, recalling the things Gray had listed off earlier. "I didn't think that it really did much after you first collapsed. Did it…?"

"I suppose it's as good a place to start as any," Gray muttered, sighing. "Might as well get the little things out of the way first." Which also did not sound encouraging. His lips pressed together in a thin line for a moment and his voice was quiet when he spoke again. "Natsu, do you remember what 'memento mori' means? It means 'memory of death'. And I died, didn't I?"

Natsu let out his breath in a hiss, eyes widening. That was a rather ominous way to introduce the topic. It took him a second to figure out what Gray was referencing, but he quickly remembered the mess after the Grand Magic Games. After the issue with the Eclipse Gate had been resolved, Natsu had noticed that something was up with Gray. The ice mage had been quiet and unhappy until Juvia had told him that he shouldn't look so down when all of Magnolia had turned out to cheer them on for their win at the Games. After that point Gray had hidden his unhappiness better, but Natsu had had a lot of practice in reading his moods by that point and could tell that he was still upset over something.

Natsu had bided his time and waited for Gray to come to him because he didn't want to push his friend—Gray would come when he was ready. A couple of weeks had passed and Natsu had started to wonder if he was going to have to track Gray down and start prying details out of him after all, but then the ice mage had finally shown up at Natsu's doorstep one morning with a handful of job requests. Halfway through the trip, he had told Natsu about how he had been killed by the dragonlings and how Ultear had sacrificed herself to turn back time for a single minute, which had saved his life.

That had been a hard conversation for both of them. It had worried Natsu because he hadn't seen Gray that upset in a long time, and he knew that his friend was blaming himself for what had happened to Ultear. And although Gray didn't come out and say it, Natsu knew that some part of him wished that Ultear hadn't cast the spell.

That frightened Natsu more than a little because he remembered the things they had talked about on Gray's birthday, and he knew that there were still times when Gray would rather be dead if it meant that the people who had sacrificed themselves for him were still alive and well. Natsu also worried that the experience had made Gray devalue his life even more, because for each person who sacrificed themselves for him, for each time he believed he should have died but had been saved instead, he died a little more on the inside.

The other thing that had struck Natsu was how close he had come to losing Gray for good this time. Yes, Gray—and all the rest of them—had come very close to dying on many occasions, but this revelation had been more real. This time Gray actually  _had_ died. Close calls were common enough, but to know that Gray had actually  _died_ , that Natsu had been one minute away from losing him forever… That was terrifying.

"Oh God," Natsu breathed fearfully, "what did it do to you?"

Gray's mouth twisted in a faint grimace and he glanced off to the side. "It didn't–it didn't really  _do_ anything, but…it kind of messed with my head. When it hit me, part of what it did was make me relive my death. And really, that wasn't so bad and I thought it was over after that. But then the nightmares started. I was okay when they were just about my death because that didn't bother me so much except for the reminder of Ultear…"

He trailed off for a moment and swallowed hard before continuing. Natsu just watched him silently, his eyes growing wider and wider with every word.

"But then I started getting nightmares about everyone I cared about who died: my parents, Ur, my father, even Ultear, though she's not technically dead," he continued in a low voice. Natsu's brow briefly crinkled in puzzlement over the double mention of Gray's father, but he didn't comment. He was still more worried about Memento Mori.

"And then I got nightmares about different kinds of ways everyone  _could_ die, kind of like after Galuna but not as focused on Deliora. And they weren't…they weren't normal nightmares. I don't know what that curse did, but it really screwed with my brain. But the effects kind of faded over time. They were only bad for the first few months. It's not so bad now."

Natsu stared at Gray, a nauseous feeling curling in his stomach. "Like Galuna? You were a mess after Galuna."

Gray pursed his lips and his eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at the ground. "Yeah, well. I figured it out."

That was neither reassuring nor made Natsu feel any better. "You said this went on for  _months_?"

Gray shrugged dismissively. "On and off. The first couple weeks were the worst. It started gradually getting better after that."

"I saw how upset you were after Galuna. This was worse than you're letting on, wasn't it?"

Because Gray had a tendency to downplay things sometimes. Natsu wasn't sure if it was because of his stubborn pride and anger this time, or if it was because he didn't want the dragon slayer to feel any guiltier than he already did. Given the current situation, the first option should seem more likely, but Natsu had the feeling that the second was playing a pretty big part.

"Maybe a little," Gray admitted, his voice subdued.

Which spoke volumes, really, because Natsu could tell that even that statement was watered down, which meant that things had been  _a lot_ worse than Gray was saying.

"Damn, I should have been here. I should have… Shit, I'm sorry. I was really freaked out when the curse hit you, but I thought that you were alright. You took Memento Mori to protect me and I didn't even double-check to make sure that you were okay after. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

But even though it was stupid for Natsu to blame himself for something that in truth really  _wasn't_ his fault, he still felt bad that this had happened because Gray had protected him. Plus, it kind of was his fault that Gray had had to deal with the aftereffects by himself.

Gray could obviously read the guilt and regret in his eyes, because he sighed heavily. "Don't look at me like that. You know better than to blame yourself for stupid crap that isn't your fault. That's my job." Natsu grimaced slightly because that really was something Gray was prone to do, but his friend kept on talking. "It's not like there was anything else you could have done—if the curse had hit you then you would be dead. And honestly, you don't have to hold my hand every time I have a nightmare. I can handle nightmares."

"But you shouldn't  _have_ to handle them on your own anymore," Natsu disagreed. He had had his reasons for leaving after Tartaros and he felt like those reasons were justified, but in running off to deal with his grief he had abandoned Gray to his own problems, and he hadn't meant for that to happen. "I was here for you last time and I should have been here again."

He half expected some sign of agreement or another acerbic comment about how he had left despite his promise, but Gray just shrugged, apparently unwilling to pursue that topic again.

"It doesn't matter. That was the least of my problems, really, and everything with Avatar helped distract me anyway."

"Least of your…? You know what, tell me about Avatar first."

Gray's lips flattened and something cold entered his eyes, but his sudden shift in attitude didn't seem to be directed at Natsu this time.

"There's not much to tell."

Or maybe it was.

"Don't do this again," Natsu pleaded "I know I screwed up by leaving, but don't shut down on me again."

Gray just sighed and shook his head. "This isn't about me being mad at you. I'm just not ready to talk about Avatar yet. It was a dark guild, Natsu—they weren't nice people. In order to get in with them, I had to get them to trust me. I had to do things that I…normally wouldn't do, and they did things to me that I don't really want to think about right now."

He swallowed hard and looked at the ground, shame and misery flickering in his eyes. Natsu opened his mouth to demand more details because he definitely didn't like that look, but Gray talked over him.

"And being in a dark guild is just really toxic," the ice mage continued, his tone conversational and no-nonsense once more as he shrugged off whatever it was that still haunted him about the experience. "It was stressful and uncomfortable and, quite frankly, pretty damn terrifying at times since I saw what they did to suspected traitors. But it was also important work and I don't regret taking that mission. It gave me more opportunities to learn how to control my new magic and gave me something more important than my other problems to focus on."

Natsu just stared at him wordlessly for a moment, his mind churning. Gray had tried playing off the experience as something that was worth doing, but Natsu was more concerned about what he had said before. He didn't know what Avatar had done to Gray or what it had made Gray do, but the fact that he was refusing to give any details was worrisome.

A sudden fear stabbed at him. "They didn't, like, make you kill anyone or anything like that, did they?"

"What?" Gray's eyes widened and he recoiled a half-step. "No. I was committed to the mission, but not  _that_ committed." He shook his head fitfully, a horrified look on his face. "God, Natsu. Don't I already have enough blood on my hands?"

That last sentence made Natsu's heart twist painfully, especially when he noticed Gray involuntarily make that dry-washing motion with his hands again. Natsu was about to tell him to stop, but Gray caught himself and stuffed his hands in his pockets. The two mages stared at each other for a few seconds.

Natsu wanted to badger Gray until his friend told him everything that happened, but he also knew that if Gray wasn't ready to talk, he wasn't going to talk. The ice mage did that sometimes, where he wouldn't want to talk immediately after something had happened but would seek Natsu out a few days or weeks later, like after the Games. But Natsu also knew that their friendship was on the rocks right now, so he wasn't sure that Gray actually  _would_ come to him if he needed help. Natsu felt that he should at least try one more time, because he wasn't sure if this was his last chance to get him to talk.

"Gray–"

"Not right now, Natsu," Gray said, shaking his head firmly. "I don't want to talk about it. Besides, it's not the main problem here."

Natsu sighed in defeat, but was also apprehensive because Gray was obviously already torn up about the nightmares and Avatar. What could possibly be worse?

"Then…What was it that you were saying about your father?"

Pain flashed across Gray's face and Natsu immediately knew that something was very, very wrong. He didn't know what it could be since Gray's father had been dead for years, but something had definitely happened.

"Natsu, one of the Demon Gates…" Gray trailed off as his voice wavered dangerously, and he took a deep breath in preparation to try again. "One of the Demon Gates was a necromancer."

Natsu didn't make the connection at first, but there was something about the way Gray had said it, had injected so much meaning into that statement, that made him examine it more closely. Yeah, he did vaguely recall something about a necromancer. Keyes, was it? That creepy guy Juvia had taken out. He still didn't know what that had to do with someone who had been dead for–

His eyes widened. "There's no way," he said, stunned. "That's impossible. Tell me that you aren't saying what I think you're saying."

He searched Gray's face for any sign that this wasn't as bad as he thought it was, but Gray just stared back sorrowfully, his dark eyes clouded with unshed tears.

"You remember…you remember when you told me that one of them smelled like me? That was–that was–"

"No," Natsu whispered.

He remembered that man, the one who had smelled like Gray, the one who had shown him and Lisanna the barest of kindnesses when the other demons had treated them like trash. He remembered how Gray had mentioned his father when he had shown up to help fight Mard Geer. Natsu had noticed all that and had thought it might be important. He had meant to ask Gray about it, but then Igneel had…Igneel had died, and Natsu had been too caught up in his own grief to really worry about his friend.

"You aren't the only one who lost your father again," Gray said brokenly.

"Your father…was one of the Demon Gates?" Natsu asked stupidly, still trying to process that.

Gray swiped the back of his hand across his eyes and stared vacantly at a point somewhere off to Natsu's left.

"Yeah," he whispered. "But he wasn't a demon. I mean, he pretended to be, at first." He let out a choked laugh. "He told me–he told me he was Deliora, actually. But I've faced that demon before and I watched it die, and I knew it wasn't true. I knew he was my father, but he was still–still an enemy, so I fought him anyway."

Gray looked back at Natsu with haunted eyes and his tears finally spilled over. For a moment Natsu was caught up in that heartbroken gaze, unable to look away, but a slight movement caught his attention. He glanced down to see that Gray was rubbing his hands together again, furiously this time, so hard that Natsu almost expected to see him rub the skin off.

"And I killed him."

Natsu's head jerked up and he met Gray's eyes once more. Gray's entire body was shaking and his eyes were filled with so much raw pain that it hurt to look at.

"No," Natsu breathed. Gray would never ever forgive himself for that.

"I didn't kill the necromancer, but it didn't matter," Gray continued, his words as sharp and jagged as knives. "My magic didn't work, but I–I threw a metal ball through his chest. When he asked me to just finish him off, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, but it didn't matter because I killed him all the same.

"And that was bad enough. God, it was terrible to think that I had to take out my father because he was our enemy, because the person I loved had somehow become evil enough to work with demons." Gray let out a strangled sob and finally tore his hands apart long enough to cover his face. "But it was so much worse than that."

Natsu couldn't imagine any way things could possibly be worse than that, and he wasn't sure that if such a way existed, he wanted to hear about it. He had been enough of a mess watching Igneel die, but at least he hadn't had to fight his father. He hadn't had to feel like he was killing him.

"Because he wasn't!" Gray wailed.

He swayed slightly as if his knees might give out, and Natsu hurriedly stepped forward to wrap his arms around him. Gray leaned on him heavily and dropped his head so that he could hide his face on Natsu's shoulder. The dragon slayer could already feel his tears seeping through the fabric.

"He wasn't evil, he hadn't been turned into a demon, he hadn't wanted to work with Tartaros. He hated Tartaros. That goddamn necromancer found his body after Deliora–after Deliora… And he just used his damned magic to raise him up. And my father ended up learning devil slayer magic. Do you know why, Natsu?"

Natsu shook his head soundlessly, even though Gray couldn't see him. He tightened his grip on his friend even further, as if he could protect Gray from the world if only he could hold him close enough. Resting his chin on Gray's bowed head, he closed his eyes and tried to ignore his own tears.

"Because he hated demons so damn much," Gray whispered. "Because he knew my mother had been killed by one and because he thought–he thought that I had been too. He thought I died that night, and he didn't know any different until he saw me at the Games. He learned devil slayer magic so that he could kill demons in revenge for what they did to me and my mother, but I wasn't even dead. I wasn't even–

"All this time…Over ten years—even more than that, actually, because of Tenrou…All this time he thought I was dead, and he was miserable and he hunted demons because that's all he could do and _I didn't know!_ I didn't know," he sobbed. "I was so messed up after Deliora, and this whole time he was the same way. I don't want to think that he hurt as much as I did, Natsu. I don't want to think that. I don't want to think that anyone else could hurt that much."

Natsu held on to Gray and cried silently. The whole story was bad, it was terrible to hear, but those last few lines truly broke his heart because there was so much painful truth there. Although he didn't really think that Gray's father had hurt half as much as his son, because Gray carried around more pain in his heart than anyone else Natsu knew.

"And in the end we just waited for the necromancer to die because I couldn't–I couldn't make myself give the killing blow," Gray added in a low, tear-choked voice. "But I couldn't think of a single thing to say. There was so much I could have told him, so much I wanted to tell him, but I couldn't make myself say any of it. And then he gave me his magic and he was gone. He was just…gone. Again."

Natsu shuddered slightly, because that sounded much too similar to his own experience with Igneel's death. He had just found his father again after so many years of searching and there had been so much he had wanted to say, but instead Igneel had died right in front of him, and there was nothing Natsu could do about it. Natsu didn't have the time to tell Igneel any of the things he wanted to. That had hurt, and he didn't like to think that Gray had undergone something similar.

"But he was already dead, really," Gray choked out. "He died when Deliora ripped my home apart. And God, I mourned for him then. I already mourned for everyone I lost back then, and now I have to mourn all over again. Just when I finally thought I was getting better…

"I was finally getting better, Natsu. I still hurt, I was still sad, but I had Fairy Tail and I had you, and you were helping me finally start letting go. But then you left and Fairy Tail disbanded and everything came back to haunt me again and I couldn't–I couldn't handle it."

Gray jerked back suddenly, startling Natsu into letting him go. The ice mage stared at him with anguished eyes.

"It never ends, does it?" he whispered brokenly.

Natsu didn't like the sound of that. "What?" he asked thickly.

Gray waved his hands in the air in a vague gesture. "Any of it. I know I've screwed up, I know I'm not always a great person, but why won't it stop?" he asked, his voice wavering as fresh tears sprang to his eyes. "Every time I think I'm getting better, something else always happens. I told you that I can't keep losing people, and I just keep losing more and more. Some of them I've even managed to lose more than once. And even though you weren't dead, it still felt like I lost you and Fairy Tail too, and it was just like before, when Deliora took everything from me. It felt like it did then, when everyone I loved was gone and I had nothing left."

That was the moment when it struck Natsu what it really was that he had done to Gray by leaving. Now he understood why Gray was so upset. He could still remember when they had talked on Gray's first birthday after Galuna, could still remember his friend's words:  _'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But everyone I loved was dead and I had nothing left and I had no reason to live, and I wanted to die…I don't always want to die anymore, but I don't always want to live either.'_

Natsu let out his breath with a hiss and stared at Gray, horrified. He hadn't known. God, he hadn't known. If he had known this had happened, if he had known that this was how Gray would feel, he would never have left, no matter how broken up he was about Igneel. He suddenly felt sick, wondering how close he had come to pushing Gray over that edge again. How close had he come to killing his best friend? Part of Natsu needed to know, but he was terrified to find out. Which was probably just as well, because no matter how betrayed Gray might feel, he would never tell Natsu if he had done that much damage. Natsu would never know.

He needed to say something to make this right, but when he opened his mouth, a different thought automatically sprang to his lips. "God, your birthday must have been so bad last year."

Gray's gaze slid away from his face. "Yeah," he said quietly.

"As bad as after Galuna?"

"Worse. Much worse."

Which would make sense to think about since Gray would have just lost his father again, which would double the pain of that anniversary. But Natsu also couldn't imagine how much worse it could have gotten.

"I'm sorry," he said brokenly, heedless of his own tears. "I didn't know. If I'd known then I wouldn't have left. I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't cry, Natsu," Gray whispered. "What did I tell you about the crying?"

"Not to do it," Natsu responded automatically.

He rubbed at his eyes and tried to force the tears to stop because he knew that Gray didn't want to see him cry. He had already hurt Gray enough, so he should at least be able to do this one simple thing for his friend. That didn't mean it was easy though. He tried to pull himself together, but although he managed to stop the tears, he knew that Gray could still read the regret and guilt in his eyes.

"It's okay, Natsu," Gray said tiredly. "Erza came to see me about infiltrating Avatar shortly afterwards, and it gave me something to focus on other than…all that." He pursed his lips and some of his earlier bitterness returned to tinge his next words. "And really, after everything I did, it almost felt like I belonged in Avatar anyway."

Natsu tried to puzzle out that last piece. Gray was hardly evil and had nothing in common with dark guild mages. The only reason he might feel as if he belonged in Avatar—deserved to be in Avatar—was if…

Natsu's mouth twisted in a pained grimace. "You're nothing like them," he said harshly. "And you sure as hell didn't deserve to be stuck with them, no matter what you may have had to do in the past. And you especially don't deserve it because of what happened with your father. You're better than that. And whatever they did to you…Don't you dare think that you deserved it."

Gray just stared at him expressionlessly, as if his earlier outburst had left him drained of emotion. He shrugged.

"It doesn't matter. If nothing else, Avatar took my mind off things for a while. And then you showed up and now everyone's back together and everything's okay again," he said wearily.

"That's not true and you know it."

He didn't like seeing Gray so drained and empty. This whole conversation had continually veered from drained to overly emotional and back again, and Natsu just wanted Gray to find some middle ground. He wanted Gray to be happy.

Gray shrugged. "Well, it's going to have to be."

"You're not okay, Gray. I know it and you know it too. Things aren't going to magically get better now. And I know that part of it is my fault, but… God, why didn't you just  _tell_ me? If you told me then I wouldn't have left."

Gray suddenly drew himself up to his full height and glared at him with flashing eyes. Natsu was almost glad that he was angry again because at least it meant that he wasn't so flat or sad anymore, but he also wasn't sure exactly what to make of the sudden mood swing.

"Why didn't I  _tell_  you?" Gray repeated, scowling at the dragon slayer. "When did I have time to tell you? First we were fighting a goddamn demon, which isn't exactly a great time to be like, 'hey, by the way, I just killed my already-dead father. Just thought you should know'. And then we were doing all the cleanup and taking care of the aftermath. And then you just  _left_  without saying anything. Tell me, Natsu, when could we have had that conversation?"

Natsu wilted a little, still feeling bad about the whole situation. "Okay, you're right. That's my fault. But couldn't you have at least told someone else so that you weren't dealing with it all alone? I'm sure you could have talked to someone before everyone went their separate ways after the disbandment. And weren't you with Juvia for a while? Why didn't you just talk to her?"

Gray was already shaking his head. "Juvia was the one who killed the necromancer, which is what…released my father. She already felt terrible about that. There was no way in hell I was going to have another breakdown about my father on her and make her feel even worse. And besides," he added, his anger flaring up again, "I didn't need Juvia. I needed  _you_.

"You were the one who snapped me out of it on Galuna. You were the one who hunted me down afterwards and wouldn't leave me alone until I told you what was wrong. You were the one who agreed to go on a stupid road trip with me and who always suggested we go on another if you knew I was upset. You were the one who tracked me down on my birthday to figure out what was wrong with me. You were the one who I told all this stuff to, the only one who knew.

"The others don't even know that I'm so screwed up, Natsu. That's my fault because I never told them, because I didn't want them to know. But don't you see? You were the only one who knew. You were the only one who understood. Don't you see why it had to be you?"

Natsu opened his mouth, needing to say something to defuse the situation, but Gray kept right on talking, his voice rising in volume.

"But you just left. God, at least Lucy got a note, not that that's much better. She was pretty damn upset over it and you owe her an apology. But at least she got  _something_. You didn't even bother telling me that you were leaving, note or otherwise. You didn't even say  _anything_ to me. I thought we were friends!"

Natsu's eyes widened and he took a half-step backwards. "Of course we're friends," he said, hurt that that would even be called into question. He grimaced slightly and let his gaze fall to the ground so that he didn't have to see Gray's angry expression anymore. "I left Lucy a note because I wasn't sure that she would get it. I didn't leave you one because I thought…I thought you'd understand without it."

There was a pause, and for a few seconds Gray didn't speak. Natsu stared at his feet and tried to figure out how he had misjudged the situation so terribly, how he had managed to screw everything up.

"I did," Gray said finally, his voice quiet. Natsu looked up quickly. All of Gray's anger had disappeared, and now he just looked tired and sad again. "At first I was shocked and upset, but when I thought about it, I wasn't even that surprised anymore. And I do understand. I know how upset you were over what happened to Igneel, and I'm not surprised that you needed some time off and did your training thing again."

He tilted his head downward so that his hair shadowed his face. "That's why I didn't want to fight you. That's why I didn't tell you I was upset. Because I felt bad that I was mad at you for something that wasn't really your fault, and I knew that it wasn't fair to you. I thought that it would go away on its own eventually, that I'd get over it without ever having to have this conversation with you. I know that you were hurting too, that you had your own problems to deal with. I'm just being selfish."

Natsu sighed softly. He didn't want Gray to think that it was selfish of him to want help or companionship. He didn't want Gray to think that he didn't have the right to come to Natsu when he was unhappy or confront him when he was upset.

"Maybe. But maybe I was being selfish too, running off without saying a word to anyone. I know I left and ended up breaking my promise, but I was always going to come back, Gray. I was never going to leave you for good."

"I know," Gray said quietly. "I know." He glanced up again, a melancholy look on his face as he met Natsu's gaze. "I really was happy to see you again," he added in a small voice. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," Natsu replied wistfully. He hesitated a moment. "Gray?" The ice mage arched an eyebrow in question, so Natsu pressed on uncertainly. "You didn't–you didn't really mean it earlier, did you? When you said that we didn't need to fix things?"

Gray frowned thoughtfully and didn't reply immediately. The silence made Natsu nervous because after all of this, he didn't think he could bear it if Gray really thought that their friendship wasn't worth saving.

"Remember when you told me that you used to think some things were too broken to fix?" Natsu asked, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. "And then you said that you didn't really think that anymore? Can't we fix this?"

Gray sighed and studied him tiredly. "I said that because it was what you needed to hear," he replied quietly. "And maybe because it was what I needed to hear too."

Natsu felt like the air got knocked out of him all at once, and he clenched his fists uselessly. "Gray, you don't really think–"

Gray shook his head sharply, and Natsu broke off.

"I think that it's very possible that some things are just too broken to fix. I might be one of them, but I don't think that our friendship is."

That made Natsu partly relieved and partly worried. He was relieved because Gray was saying that he wanted to give their friendship another try because he still cared about Natsu and thought that what they had was worth saving. But he was also worried and sad because he didn't want Gray to give up on himself.

"You're not," he disagreed. "Give me a chance. I was doing a pretty good job up until the whole Tartaros thing. I can do this."

Gray hesitated a moment, debating whether or not to say something, but then sighed. "Well, if we're going to fix things then that needs to be the first thing we correct."

Natsu frowned in confusion, not understanding. "What?"

"Look," Gray started, considering his words carefully. "It's true that I was upset that you left, but that's not the only reason. It's not even the main reason, really. I mean, you didn't even know about all the stuff that happened to me, so I could only be so mad, you know?"

"Oh God, what else did I do?" Natsu asked apprehensively, his mind racing to find any other possible reason that Gray might be mad at him.

But Gray didn't look angry right now. He just looked sad.

"I needed you, Natsu, but why didn't you need me?"

Natsu froze, his mind grinding to a halt. "What?" he asked stupidly.

Gray slouched down a little and his gaze dropped to the ground. "I saw what happened to Igneel," he said quietly. "And I've been watching out for you every year around his disappearance, and any other time I've noticed that you're lonely because he's gone. I've done it for years, since even before Galuna, and you know it. You think I didn't know that you were devastated? You think that  _I_ wasn't devastated? I even went with you on some of your quests to look for him, and God, I wanted you to find him. And when you finally did find him after all those years, he died right in front of you.

"If I stood by you through all that, why did you think that I wouldn't want to be there for you through this too?"

Natsu stared at him, stunned, and his eyes slowly filled with tears that he hurriedly tried to blink away. Even after he had left, even after he had abandoned Gray to deal with the loss of his father and all his other issues alone, Gray was  _still_ more worried about Natsu than about himself.

"I needed you too," Natsu admitted finally, his unshed tears obscuring his view of his friend. "I guess I just didn't…I don't even know."

Gray shrugged slightly. "I guess maybe I'm being presumptuous. I was pretty torn up at that point too, so maybe I wouldn't have been that much help. I guess I just thought that maybe it would be better if we did it together instead of trying to handle everything by ourselves."

The indirect reminder of what had happened to Gray's father snapped Natsu out of his daze, and he quickly forced back the tears at the corners of his eyes and smoothed out his expression. This really wasn't the time or place to mourn for Igneel again. Gray was still upset too and he needed Natsu. Natsu had screwed up and left him behind before, and right now he owed it to his friend to be there for him.

"It's okay, I–"

"Natsu," Gray interrupted. The dragon slayer immediately broke off and regarded his friend apprehensively. "It's okay to be sad."

"Well yeah, but right now we're talking about you and–"

"You still don't get it," Gray broke in, giving Natsu a weary, melancholy look. "Look, you know how you just started talking about fixing me again? That's what you've been trying to do ever since Galuna. Once you found out how messed up I was, you started this…mission to fix me. And I appreciate it, really, and maybe I need that.

"But Natsu, what good does it do if you don't let me return the favor?"

Natsu stared at him blankly. "I don't understand."

Gray smiled faintly. "I know you don't, but if you want to fix things between us then this is something you're going to have to understand. You know how when we talked on my birthday you said that you felt like a terrible friend? How am I not supposed to feel that way too in this situation?"

Natsu opened his mouth to protest—after all, he had been the one who had broken his promise and run off—but Gray's eyes flared with sudden irritation, and he subsided. He thought that maybe he should just hear his friend out and then make comments at the end. Gray's irritation melted away, leaving his eyes sad again.

"You've been trying so hard to fix me that you sometimes forget that I was looking out for you first. I've been 'fixing' you since before you even knew that there was anything wrong with me. You're always so careful to look for signs when I'm getting unhappy again and you're stubborn as hell until I tell you what's wrong. Since Galuna, I've come to you about everything major that goes on, or you come to me."

Gray sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "And yeah, we still go on jobs and things around the anniversary of Igneel's disappearance or when I can tell that you're missing him, but when something major finally happened you ran away, Natsu. It's like I'm allowed to help you when anything minor is going on, but all bets are off when it's actually important.

"And I get it, to an extent," he continued, his mouth twisting bitterly. "I know that I scared you half to death with what I almost did on Galuna and that I freaked you out with some of the things I said afterwards. God knows if you said even half of that stuff to me, I would put you on an around-the-clock suicide watch." He snorted, but Natsu could tell that he was only half joking. "But it's not necessary, really. You seem to think that I'm going to break again if you so much as breathe on me wrong. I'm pretty screwed up, there are times when almost anything can send me over the edge, but I'm not usually as fragile as you think I am.

"You're right that I have a lot more problems than you do. I'm a lot more broken, a lot more scared, a lot more depressed at times. But Natsu, that doesn't mean that you need to try hiding all of your own problems so that you can take care of mine. Remember, I handled watching out for you long before you started this mission of yours, and I did fine.

"I appreciate everything you've done for me, but don't you understand yet? It's not supposed to be about fixing me, Natsu. This is supposed to be about both of us. Not letting me do my part only makes me feel worse about everything. And things were okay before because I could still tell when you were upset and we could go take care of it together, but… You left this time, Natsu. I was supposed to be there for you when something that devastating happened, but you left. Why? Why didn't you trust me to help you like you helped me?"

He fell silent and stared at Natsu forlornly, and the dragon slayer's eyes widened as all the pieces finally started falling into place.

"Oh," he said.

He had been concerned because it had seemed like Gray was resetting the boundaries of their relationship, putting that closeness they had shared off-limits, but now he could see that in Gray's eyes,  _Natsu_ was the one who had restricted the boundaries. Natsu was the one who had left as soon as something major had happened, effectively saying that it wasn't Gray's place to help.

Friendships were two-way streets. Natsu had harassed Gray until he had finally opened up and let him in, and Gray had expected a measure of the same from him. For a time it had been alright because Natsu had been there for Gray all the times he'd fallen into depressive phases and Gray had been there for Natsu any time the dragon slayer was feeling particularly upset about Igneel or anything else. There had been a balance of sorts. Sure, Gray was usually the one who needed more comforting, but that was because he had a lot more problems, a lot more insecurities and guilt, and his past had come back to haunt him more than once.

For the most part, nothing too major had happened to Natsu, but Gray would have expected to be there for him if it did. And then something major  _had_ happened and instead of going to Gray like he should have, Natsu had left instead. If Gray didn't think that Natsu trusted him when it counted, then no wonder he hadn't wanted to tell him anything important once he had finally come back. Gray would have felt that if he didn't have the right to comfort Natsu when the dragon slayer most needed him, then he didn't have the right to expect any comfort from Natsu either.

Gray might have ended up restricting the boundaries even more afterwards, but he wasn't the one who had reduced their bond into a mere acquaintanceship—Natsu was. He hadn't realized that he'd been doing it, he hadn't meant to do it, but the damage had been done all the same.

"I think I understand," he said quietly. "Gray, I'm sorry."

Gray hesitated for a moment, before sighing and dropping his eyes to the ground. "I'm sorry too, flame brain."

Natsu started and blinked at him uncomprehendingly for a second, then felt a smile work its way across his face. "Been a long time since I've heard that."

Gray looked up and offered him a half-smile in return. It was still a little sad, still a little hurt, but it was there.

"There must be stranger things to miss, but I can't think of many," he commented wryly.

"Ha, you'd miss it too if I stopped calling you by nicknames," Natsu shot back.

Gray's eyes dimmed. "Sorry."

Natsu bit his lip. He didn't want to make Gray feel bad again.

"It's okay. Hey, maybe we should go on a job after this?" he suggested uncertainly, not sure how the offer would be taken now that things were different.

"We're too busy now," Gray said, frowning and shaking his head. "We still need to rebuild the guild and find Jii-chan."

"We could make it a  _short_ job," Natsu wheedled.

Gray snorted and rolled his eyes. "Try explaining that to Erza."

"Erza can be reasonable," Natsu said. Gray arched an eyebrow. "Well, okay, she might not be too happy about having us run off for no apparent reason, but–"

Natsu paused, took a couple steps to the left so that Gray wasn't blocking his view anymore, and narrowed his eyes at the sight before him. He had been vaguely aware that all the bystanders had fled pretty quickly when he and Gray had started fighting, but he had been so distracted that he hadn't even realized that anyone else had shown up.

"Hey, you know how I told you that one day you were gonna have to tell everyone else about all the stuff that's been going on with you?"

Gray's eyes narrowed warily. "Why?"

Natsu nodded his head at a point behind Gray. The ice mage blinked at him for a second and then spun around.

"Oh hell," he said. "How long have they been there?"

Natsu didn't know how he had missed half of Fairy Tail standing on the sidewalk nearby, watching them. Erza was in the front, a slightly shell-shocked look on her face. Lucy was hugging Happy tightly to her chest, and Levy had latched on to one of her arms. All of them were teary-eyed. Even Loke had materialized and was standing on Lucy's other side, his eyes hidden by his tinted glasses. Juvia looked like she had been bawling silently, and Cana had even abandoned her booze to watch Gray with a distraught expression. Wendy was clutching Charle and looked like she had been crying as well, and Mira was standing nearby with her eyes filled with tears and her hands pressed over her mouth as Lisanna hovered by her side. Even Gajeel, Laxus, and the Raijinshuu were there, all with varying degrees of horror and uneasiness written on their faces.

"I…don't know," Natsu admitted. Although judging by all the tears, he suspected that they had probably been here for at least part of Gray's story about his father.

Gray gave him a disbelieving look. Natsu thought that he might be starting to regret his flippant comment about the suicide watch right about now.

"How in the world did you not see them?" he demanded.

"You didn't see them either," Natsu protested sulkily.

"I was facing the opposite direction. You were looking right at them."

"Sorry, I guess I was a little bit distracted," he said sheepishly.

Gray just shook his head. "I don't know why you couldn't just ambush me at my apartment like usual instead of accosting me in the middle of the street." Then he sighed. "Some things never change. Good to know that you're still an oblivious idiot at heart."

Natsu smirked. "Maybe, but you love me anyway."

He had thought that the teasing would be acceptable now that they were no longer overtly upset with each other, but Gray's face immediately fell and Natsu's heart sank. Maybe they weren't as close to fixing things as he had thought. He immediately wanted to smack himself in the face when he saw his friend's eyes slowly fill with tears.

"Yeah," Gray said finally, his voice wavering slightly.

Natsu froze for a second and then almost wanted to start bawling. Instead, he let his eyes drift back towards the rest of Fairy Tail. "And you love them too," he said past the lump in his throat.

"Yeah," Gray said again in a small voice.

"I know this is all going to lead back to how you don't want to see them hurting because of you, but we knew this was going to have to happen eventually," Natsu pressed gently. "It's the same thing you were just talking about with me—you've spent so long trying to help them, but you never let them have the same opportunity. That's not very fair, is it?"

Gray shook his head reluctantly, but still didn't look pleased at this turn of events.

"You  _did_ help them, didn't you?" Natsu asked softly, making sure that Gray could acknowledge what he had done for them.

The ice mage hesitated and glanced back at them, biting his lip.

"Come on, Gray," Natsu insisted. "You already told me this. What was all that about how you didn't want to make friends when you first came to the guild but you ended up gravitating towards the people you realized were hurting? You've been looking out for them ever since you joined Fairy Tail. You took care of them instead of taking care of yourself. Isn't that what you said? That needs to change."

Gray still looked torn, but the others were finally shaking off their stunned stupor.

"Well, he was  _my_ first real friend at the guild," Cana said. "And goodness knows he's stuck by me a long time. He's sat with me more than once when I was upset, and he's always getting me out of trouble when I get drunk." She eyed him sadly. "I didn't know," she added quietly.

Gray winced and looked away.

"Funny, but he ended up looking out for me too," Loke commented steadily. "Even though I was older—a lot older, honestly—and he didn't know anything about what I was or what I had done. I don't know how he could tell how guilty I felt or how he always seemed to know when I was the unhappiest, but he did." He set his lips in a thin line. "And I didn't know much of anything either."

Gray hunched his shoulders.

"He was always making sure that I was okay after Lisanna…after we thought that Lisanna was dead," Mira said tearfully, grabbing onto her younger sister and holding her tightly. "And I had no idea."

Gray swallowed hard and clenched his hands into fists so that his fingernails were digging into the palms of his hands.

"He was one of my first friends in the guild other than Natsu and Happy," Lucy whispered, swiping at her eyes with one hand and keeping Happy held tightly with the other. "He always made me feel welcome and made sure that I was doing alright. And even though I saw some of what happened on Galuna Island, I didn't know it was this bad."

Gray shifted uncomfortably and shuffled a half-step back.

"Gray-sama made Juvia's rain stop," Juvia added, her voice almost a wail. "She knew that Gray-sama was upset about his father but she did not realize that he was even more upset than she knew and was trying to hide it to protect her!" She buried her face in her hands, tears leaking out from between her fingers.

Gray grimaced and tilted his head so that his hair obscured his face from view.

"He was my first friend at Fairy Tail too," Erza said finally, her voice soft. She narrowed her eyes and glanced away in a bid to stop the tears from escaping. "He was so annoying at first, but then he found me crying down by the river and sat with me so that I didn't have to be alone. And maybe I could tell that something was bothering him from time to time, but not like this. I never knew this."

Gray flinched back and wrung his hands helplessly.

"He sure was annoying when I first met him," Natsu said quietly, watching him sadly. "But he always seemed to know when I was down and lonely, and he'd always do what he could. And he was the best friend I ever had. I knew a lot more than everyone else, but there's a lot that I didn't know until today."

Gray made a strangled sound in the back of his throat and covered his face with his hands.

Natsu hadn't heard most of these stories until today, but he couldn't say that he was surprised. Gray hadn't been kidding when he had said that he always ended up looking after other people instead of taking care of himself. He just needed to learn that it was okay to let other people return the favor.

"I told you, we want to be there for you in the good times and the bad. I know that you don't want to see us upset, but surely by now you must realize that this is what friends are for. You celebrated with us when we were happy and comforted us when we were sad. Let us do the same for you."

Gray finally dropped his hands away from his face and looked up. His pale face was streaked with tears, and he stared at them helplessly.

"I–I don't–" He broke off and shook his head.

"You can take some time to go on jobs if that's what you need," Erza told him quietly. "But first…Won't you let us help you? You've done so much, Gray. It's our turn, but we won't know what to do unless you tell us what's wrong."

Gray looked at her for a moment and then switched his gaze back to Natsu, as if asking him for help.

"You were wrong earlier, you know, when you said that you were being selfish," Natsu said. "You might be one of the least selfish people I've ever met. You're always giving to other people, aren't you? Usually I'd say that you need to stop giving so much and start worrying about yourself instead, but this is important. Give them what they need, Gray."

The ice mage stared at him miserably. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

"You don't have to tell them all the details of everything." Natsu was sure that there were things Gray had said, things about life and death, for example, that he wasn't ready to share with the others yet. And that was okay, because this was just a start. "But they need to know the basics. Tell them about how you weren't doing so well for the past several years. Tell them about what happened on Galuna and about the aftermath."

He paused and frowned. "I'm going to assume that you didn't tell them about everything with your death?"

Gray shook his head and averted his eyes. "Juvia knows some of it since she was there, but I never told her about Ultear."

"Well then tell them about your death and about what happened to Ultear. And for God's sake, Gray, tell them about your birthday."

Gray's eyes snapped back to his face, and Natsu could read the reluctance there.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," he said. "You didn't take it very well."

"Of course I didn't take it well," Natsu replied grimly. "I don't think there  _is_ a way to take it well. But they deserve to know, don't they?"

Gray hesitated, and Natsu could tell that he was wavering on the brink, half inclined to walk away and half inclined to stay and share.

"Tell them," he urged gently.

Gray stared at him, clearly torn, and Natsu waited nervously. This was the moment of truth, so to speak. Either he would speak up now or the moment would be lost. And it concerned Natsu for more selfish reasons as well, because he thought that Gray's choice might reflect something of the state of their friendship right now. If a scene like this had played out a year ago, he thought that he could have convinced Gray to tell the others what was going on, because his friend had listened to him. Natsu wasn't sure if Gray was quite ready to go back to that kind of relationship yet.

"It's okay," he said softly, seeing the indecision and fear reflected in his friend's eyes. "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

"Sometimes promises are made to broken," Gray replied. He didn't sound angry or accusatory, just sad and apprehensive.

Natsu bit his lip, knowing that he didn't have the best track record here.

"You said that you knew I always meant to come back even though I left?" he asked, recalling something from their previous conversation. Gray nodded wordlessly. "That's a promise. I didn't come out and say it, but you knew it anyway. Who knows? Maybe there will be times when I have to leave, so maybe that's not a promise I can keep. But I  _can_ promise that even if I have to leave, I'll always come back for you."

Gray swallowed and looked away, blinking back tears.

"I'm here right now. I know it's scary, I know it's something that you've dreaded for a long time. But I'm here, okay? You're not gonna have to do it alone. And that  _is_ one of the things you're scared of, isn't it? You've lost so many people, felt lonely too long, that you don't really want to be alone again, no matter what you've tried to tell yourself. But look at them, Gray. Look at them."

Natsu nudged Gray to get him to look back at the gathering of his friends, all watching him with concern. "What happened after Tartaros is a fluke. I'll be damned if we all split up like that again. You're not going to be alone. We're still a family, and family comes with promises built in."

Natsu held his breath as Gray stared at him. He needed Gray to understand, needed Gray to let him back in so that they could figure things out together this time. What he really needed was just some sign that Gray was going to forgive him.

Gray seemed frozen in place as well, but then he slowly took a couple hesitant steps towards Natsu, edging in closer to the dragon slayer in a gesture reminiscent of someone seeking comfort. His body was tensed up and he had an uncertain, vulnerable look on his face, as if he still wasn't sure if he was allowed to ask Natsu for help again.

Natsu wrapped an arm around him and tugged him a little closer. Noticing that Gray's hands were trembling, he grasped one of them in his own free hand to make it stop. Gray stared wordlessly at their joined hands, and Natsu waited to see whether the effort would be accepted or rejected. Then Gray let out his breath in a shuddering sigh and the tension drained out of his body.

He leaned against Natsu and tightened his grip on the dragon slayer's hand, hanging on to it as tightly as if it was a lifeline. He glanced up and their eyes met. Natsu could tell that he was still hurting, still sad, still frightened at the prospect of facing the others. But then he inclined his head slightly in the barest hint of a nod, and Natsu knew that things were going to be alright. Gray looked back over at where the rest of Fairy Tail was waiting with sad and worried faces.

And, taking a deep breath and clinging to Natsu for support, he finally told them his story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I like to focus on Gray and Natsu here, I thought it was important that everyone else eventually find out about everything that was going on too. You can use your imagination to figure out when exactly the rest of FT showed up and how they managed to stay quiet enough that no one noticed them. As for Memento Mori, I know I expanded on it a little, but I was always a little miffed that the connection was never made that the person who got hit by the curse had actually died before. And before anyone asks, no, I'm not planning on writing another part about whatever happened with Avatar. Sorry, but you're going to have to use your imagination there too.
> 
> Speaking of which, I really do think that this is actually the end this time. I found this part to be super emotional and a great way to end everything, and I don't think I'm going to come up with anything better for this. Thank you to everyone who stuck with this project to the end : )

**Author's Note:**

> These two are such idiots, but you gotta love them anyway, ha ha. And on a side note, there were a couple things here that weren't fully explained, but they'll be explained in the other side story, promise.


End file.
